More Lenience and Fairness Towards the Competition Films

Huang Jianxin, one of the jurors for the 12th SIFF Jin Jue Award, said in an interview with our reporter that the films for competition this year are generally of fine quality, and that these films are evaluated in a fair and square way. The 12th SIFF is very popular with professionals in film industry as well as other film-lovers outside this business.

As chairman of the Beijing Film Director Association, Huang has been a jury member for lots of international film festivals, such as the 25th Cairo International Film Festival, the 11th Fukuoka International Film Festival and so on. In speaking of the contestants, Huang made his comments: “Some films are really good, in my opinion, but some, I don’t like so much. As a matter of fact, the quality of a film does not depend on personal judgement, because people in different places may be completely dissimilar in living habits, ways of emotional expression and even facial expressions. The diversified backgrounds of the jury members can guarantee the fairness and justice of film competitions in a certain degree.”

Huang added: “Jury chairman Danny Boyle once mentioned that we should be lenient with those films. It is actually a very good attitude. Every juror has his own personal preference, and it is sometimes difficult to avoid the involvement of this personal preference in evaluating a film. Therefore, a lenient attitude is another way to assure the fairness of this competition.”

It is a tiring job to be a juror who is supposed to see three films each day in addition to other programs that require their presence. Huang told the reporter: “Apart from the films for competition, I would love to see some films of French New Wave, but I haven’t found time to do it. Seeing films in the cinema, watching a video at home, they are totally different experiences. In the cinema, the darkened surroundings provides a special atmosphere which makes it easier to concentrate on the film. Besides, the screen is so large that one could discern subtle changes on the screen. These small details might be purposefully designed by the director for certain specific effect on the audience’s emotional experience.” 

Lofty Ambitions of Nation Building, directed by Huang as a gift for the 60th anniversary of the founding of PRC, is now in post-production period and is scheduled to be on in September 2009. Huang said: “The cast of this film is formidable, including a number of superstars such as Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Andy Lau, Jiang Wen, Zhang Ziyi and Leon Li.”