The intensive screening of more than 500 Chinese and foreign films has made the 22nd Shanghai International Film Festival, which is currently being held, a feast for the majority of film fans and a platform for exchange. This year, the Shanghai International Film Festival has teamed up with the Shanghai Citizens Cultural Festival to hold the "Truth, Goodness and Beauty in Films" essay activity of citizen film review once again. Immediately, Shanghai Film Critics Society and Changning Library jointly opened the "Citizen Film Review Writing Camp". The "Writing Camp" invited well-known film critics from Shanghai to go to the scene to guide the audience on how to write film reviews, guide and inspire the audience to discover truth, goodness and beauty, as well as spread positive energy while watching films.
On June 18, the five-day "Citizen Film Review Writing Camp" was launched in the NICE TO MEET YOU Bookstore near Shanghai Film City. In the first phase, the young film critic Ma Shengnan, a member of the Shanghai Film Review Society, gave a lecture and guidance entitled "A Restricted View of French Classical Films".
Ma Shengnan started from the starting point of film art -- the Gaumont film projector and combed many French filmmakers involved in the films shown at this film festival, such as Bresson, Melville and Varda, so as to close the distance between ordinary audiences and these films. "There is no threshold for film review. Everyone can write it. The only thing that needs to be opened is the feeling of a film." Ma Shengnan said that in addition to guiding the audience to write film reviews, the Citizen Film Review Writing Camp can also help more people find films that they like or are suitable for watching.
Then, how can people write film reviews with a novel perspective and sincere emotion after meeting their favorite films? Ma Shengnan believes that film reviews need not be limited to the form and structure. As France\'s famous film critic Frodon said, film review is actually a re-creation of art and a sharing of personal feelings. The pleasure of writing a film review lies in sharing the joy brought by the film. "That what impresses you will impress others. When you write a film review in meditation, as long as your language is fluent and your point of view is clear, it will infect people."
A film must first move you and then move others through film reviews. In this process, a sincere writing attitude is crucial. Ma Shengnan believes that it is absolutely undesirable for some film critics to be eye-catching and impress others by being aggressive and critical. "For the film art, or the attitude of film review writing, it is true that the words can be full of vitality and readability by making them life-oriented and marketing, but on the other hand, the film review writing should also be sincere due to the respect for filmmakers. A transcendental criticism that criticizes for the sake of criticism and deliberately finds fault with it will vulgarize the film review."
Some audiences said that they used to watch a film by only knowing a little about it or viewing it before, and did not understand or think about the connotation of the film. After listening to this lecture, on the one hand, they had a more overall understanding of French films; on the other hand, they also aroused their desire to use their brains to have a try. They said that such lectures are of great benefit to improving the citizens\' viewing quality and they hoped to be held often from now on.
From yesterday, the Citizen Film Review Writing Camp held a film critic salon at the NICE TO MEET YOU Bookstore for five consecutive days. Each theme will be close to the Film Panorama of the film festival. The following four phases are: Ceylan and His Film World, Greek Film Ramblings, Brief History of Short Films, and New Book Publishing Salon of Hirokazu Koreeda: START HERE AGAIN.
Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture and Tourism
