The poster of the 2023 China Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival (COURTESY PHOTO) 

The top annual Chinese film extravaganza, China Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival, will open on November 1 in Xiamen, Fujian Province in southeast China. The four-day event will see a range of activities, from film screenings and academic forums to pitch summits. 

This year’s festival will also host the 36th China Golden Rooster Awards, which will see nominees compete for Golden Roosters in 20 categories, with 179 works submitted for nomination since June 28, according to the press conference of the film festival, held on October 9 in Beijing.

Launched in 1981, the Golden Rooster Awards are sponsored by the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the China Film Association.

China’s movie market has staged a quick recovery this year with the end of COVID-19 as a public health emergency. People and the industry have displayed great gusto for the first China Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival after China downgraded its management of COVID-19 from Class A to Class B infectious disease, said Wu Zidong, a member of the Standing Committee of the Xiamen Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China.

The press conference further unveiled this year’s festival poster, featuring   traditional paper-cutting in vibrant red color, with a rooster character prominently placed in the middle, surrounded by auspicious clouds, flowers and Xiamen’s landmarks.

The festival also pays attention to traditional Chinese opera films. “We will have a forum to discuss issues such as the aesthetic expression of contemporary Chinese opera films and how traditional art can be revived through films,” said Yan Shaofei, head of the Children’s Film Working Committee of the China Film Association, at the press conference, adding that the festival will focus on new ways to promote traditional culture.

“Films are a perfect way to tell stories. How to present traditional Chinese culture is a film festival’s task,” Yan said.

Foreign film artists are invited to attend the festival to promote the global influence of Chinese films, Wu added. Films from more than 30 countries and regions such as Russia, France and Brazil will meet Chinese audiences during the event.

Works produced by participating countries and regions of the Belt and Road Initiative, a China-proposed initiative to boost connectivity along the ancient Silk Road routes, have been collected to convey a sense of cultural communication plus the progress of the initiative. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the initiative.

“As an important film award, the Golden Rooster has contributed to the progress of China’s film art and industry. We hope it will become more influential worldwide,” Yan said.

Copyedited by Elsbeth van Paridon 

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