2020-11-20

Belt and Road Film Tour | SIFF Project Mordaga entered the main competition of Cairo International F

The 42th Cairo International Film Festival has unveiled some selected films including Chinese films recommended by Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF). Mordaga, a production of the SIFF PROJECT in 2018, entered the main competition and will hold its international premiere, and Back to the Wharf, an official selection of Golden Goblet Award of the 23rd SIFF in 2020, will hold its international premiere as a selected film of the screening unit.

Mordaga and Back to the Wharf entered the selection of the 42th Cairo International Film Festival

The 42th Cairo International Film Festival was postponed to December 2-10 from November due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The festival will be held offline with competition sessions, screening units and industrial events organized as planned including the project, forum and master classes. The Festival President and producer Mohamed Hefzy said: “The team of Cairo International Film Festival is thrilled and eager to present an outstanding program of distinguished films at the 42nd edition.”

Mordaga is the first film of Cao Jinling as a director, a Doctor of Literature and script writer, with Mark Lee Ping Bing, a winner of the Silver Berlin Bear, as Director of Photography and starred by Wang Chuanjun and Qi Xi. As the first movie shot in the Mordaga forests, it is about how loggers fought to protect the last dozens of ancient trees against predatory cutting, reflecting the collision between nature and humanity.

Cao Jinling (right), director of Mordaga, and producer Cao Dayong in the 2018 SIFF Project session

The Cairo International Film Festival is organized by the Ministry of Culture in Egypt, and is the oldest and the only one accorded as a category “A” status by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations in Africa.

In 2018, the SIFF established the Belt and Road Film Festival Alliance, based on which the Belt and Road Film Week was launched. As of this June, its member institutions have grown to 50 of 44 countries from 32 of 29 countries at the beginning. Based on this platform, SIFF has started the Belt and Road Film Tour which includes different forms, like screening, exhibition and demonstration. In this way, the cultural exchanges and cooperation on “Belt and Road”-themed movies are not limited within the festival but can go through the whole, making greater contributions for Chinese movies to “go out” to communicate the Chinese culture and stories.