The Tokyo International Film Festival, which ended earlier this year, doesn't seem to have left much of a buzz on Jane's Internet.
Once upon a time, the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) was almost one of the neighboring film festivals with the closest ties to Chinese cinema.
Counting the names that appeared in TIFF, Wu Tianming, Huang Jianxin, Tian Zhuangzhuang, Zhang Yimou, Ning Ying, from the fourth generation of directors to the sixth generation of directors, are all closely associated with TIFF - in those eras where information is not as developed as today, news about Chinese films winning awards in Tokyo is not uncommon.
Until recent years, under the atmosphere of Sino-Japanese friendly exchanges, a considerable number of Chinese films still appear in TIFF every year.
At the same time, however, for most non-hardcore Japanese film fans, it seems that each TIFF has left a shallower and lighter impression .
Although this year's TIFF briefly returned to the Chinese audience's discussion because of the inclusion of the first feature film "One and Four" by young Tibetan director Jigme Eiri, it has to be admitted that for a long time, when we mention TIFF, all that remains is the audience's lament that TIFF's reputation and influence are declining year after year.
In fact, for other film festivals in Asia, many also face a problem similar to TIFF: the influence of the competition unit that can directly buy the prestige of the film festival is difficult to compete with european and American film festivals.
Even for the Shanghai International Film Festival, which is also a category A, and the Beijing International Film Festival, which has established itself according to the standard of category A, the creation of the competition unit is not only the top priority, but also the difficulty.
Furthermore, for asian non-specialized competition (i.e., A) film festivals, the competition section used to be in a relatively awkward position.
This, of course, is closely related to the power structure in the entire cycle of international film festivals, and as a prestige system for film festivals that still presents itself as the center of Europe, film festivals in Asia are still in a marginal position.
TIFF: Why embarrassing?
Founded in 1985, TIFF has a history of more than three decades, making it the largest international film festival in Asia, and has ambitions to compete with Berlin, Cannes and Venice.
Just as Pei Kar-ri and other film festival researchers use two descriptive verbs to describe some Asian film festivals, "appropriation" and "translation", to some extent, the establishment of TIFF can also be seen as the result of "translating" a common international film festival model and concept into Asia and Japan.
Since its second edition (1987), TIFF has officially established the main competition unit for the international community as a basic activity for itself.
Similar to european film festivals, this section not only features the highest award, the Tokyo Grand Prize/Tokyo Governor's Award (formerly known as the Golden Kirin Award), but also presents the Special Jury Prize, the Best Director Award, the Best Actor and Actress Award, the Best Screenplay Award, and the Best Artistic Contribution Award, and in the process of development, the Audience Award is added.
Each prize has a prize, and the Tokyo Grand Prize is worth up to $30,000. The participating films are shortlisted, so about 15 films compete for awards in the main competition unit every year.
The jury of the main competition unit is generally composed of 5 film industry practitioners from all over the world, including well-known actors, mature directors and producers, for example, this year's jury chairman is the famous French actress Isabella Hupper, who participated in the filmmaker dialogue activities in this capacity and had live exchanges with director Ryusuke Hamaguchi.
In a way, the star-studded jury can also be seen as a way for the main competition unit to increase its influence and exposure, thus becoming an important part of the prestige system of the festival.
Relatively speaking, the selection of the main competition unit pays attention to the artistic quality and audience acceptance of the film, and tries to provide an impression of "The World at a Glance", so the selection of the film is quite broad.
As Huppel said at this year's closing ceremony, "The first impression I get from these 15 films is the 'immense' diversity, and we are dealing with works from mature authors and young directors, representing different countries and communities in the world".
The diversity of films is complemented by the criteria for the Tokyo Awards, and TIFF prides itself on its ability to discover outstanding international films.
This year's Tokyo Awards were awarded to the Kosovo film "Vera Dreams of the Sea", which became the first Kosovo film to win TIFF's highest award.
In a related report on TIFF, it states that "originally the winners of the Golden Kirin Award were mostly found in Asia, but now they are centered on Europe and have a global scope" – perhaps it can be said that while "translating" the international film festival model into Asia, TIFF has also established this "cosmopolitan" criterion for awards based on artistic value, and has also introduced the issues of European film festivals as its agenda.
On March 8 this year, TIFF participated in the signing of the 5050X2020 Pledge, which was presented at the 2018 Cannes International Film Festival, and became the first film festival in Asia to participate in signing the Pledge, which aims to promote gender equality among the festival committee members, film directors, actors and staff.
For this reason, women's issues have become an important agenda item for this year's TIFF. However, this imitation of the popular discourse of film festivals also means that TIFF must face the competition with European and American film festivals.
The winning works of the 1st to 30th Golden Kirin Awards are distributed regionally
Image source: https://www.nippon.com/cn/japan-data/h00327/
According to the rules of the International Film Producers Association, films shortlisted for the competition unit of the A-category film festival can no longer participate in the awards of other A-category film festivals, so the premiere rights of the film have become a must for the competition unit - if a film festival is difficult to meet the needs of film debut, exposure and subsequent circulation, it will definitely cause the loss of excellent films, and this is the challenge of TIFF, it can not attract the best films to give up the premiere in the "Three Major Europeans" and participate in their own competitions and awards.
As a result, this year's main competition section of TIFF has once again lowered the requirements for premiere rights, as the festival wrote in its film announcement, "Until last year, we had priority for films that could have an Asian premiere at TIFF, but now we will also consider submissions for films that have a Japanese premiere." ”
This, of course, further raises concerns about TIFF's declining prestige and influence.
In addition, compared with the distinct "Asian" positioning presented by TIFF's sub-competition unit "Asian Future", TIFF's main competition unit seems to lack a more distinct "personality", and the failure to base itself on more local issues seems to make it face greater competition in film selection and curation than the more sophisticated European and American film festivals.
"The Unrequited Love of the Nightingale" shortlisted for the "Future of Asia" section
The disadvantageous position on the film festival calendar also weakens the competitiveness of the TIFF competition unit.
TIFF takes place in late October and early November, well after the three major European festivals, even later than the Autumn Festivals in North America and other major film festivals in Asia.
For films that participated in the competition, especially in Tokyo, this was not conducive to their circulation in subsequent film festivals, and Japan itself was not enough to provide a sufficient film market for them. These unfavorable factors have made the main competition unit of TIFF in a slightly awkward position for a long time.
BJIFF: How is the prestige system established?
Perhaps we will see a similar situation in the competition section of the Beijing International Film Festival (hereinafter referred to as BJIFF). BJIFF's competition unit was established in 2013 with the same theme of "Discovering the latest masterpieces from around the world and encouraging film diversity".
As a film festival that builds itself according to the standards of A-category film festivals, the main competition unit of BJIFF also faces competition from European and American, other parts of Asia or even domestic A-type film festivals.
Not only that, in previous years, BJIFF was held in April, and from the perspective of the film festival calendar, it is at the end of the global film festival ring, which means that there are very few options left for BJIFF.
However, as its main competition unit selector Wang Jianyi said at the "Irori Shadow Talk: Image Curation Workshop" held by UCCA, in the past two years, BJIFF's main competition unit has indeed been constantly exploring a way to get rid of this "awkward" position, that is, to enhance the influence of the main competition unit and the Temple of Heaven Award.
The most obvious change is probably in terms of the national films shortlisted for the main competition unit of BJIFF. In the past shortlisted Chinese films, there is always a law that is jokingly called "one big and one small" by the audience, that is, there will often be a commercial blockbuster with the main theme and a domestic art film with a small and medium cost.
Not only that, these national films are likely to have been released, not only can not bring more attention to the competition of the Temple of Heaven Awards, but also make the award of the Temple of Heaven Awards in addition to a kind of recognition, can not produce a more substantive role - this is also contrary to the award rules of many international film festival awards, because the awards of film festivals are often regarded as a commercial promoter to promote the sale of films. Both for the film and for the film festival itself, such a selection is relatively unattractive.
This year, for the first time, the national films shortlisted for the main competition unit of BJIFF no longer have films that have been released.
Not only that, looking at the selection of national films in the main competition unit of BJIFF in the past two years, we can see a kind of emphasis on film aesthetics and artistic exploration: from "Spring River Plumbing" shortlisted last year to "Above the Clouds", which won the Temple of Heaven Award for Best Film this year, it has shown a strong aesthetic tendency.
Not only that, but the other two new Chinese films shortlisted for the main competition this year, "All About My Mother" and "If One Day I Will Leave You", have each restated a set of coming-of-age narratives in a fresh and unconventional way.
After the end of BJIFF, these two films have also ushered in their own release or finalization - which is enough to show that the main competition unit of BJIFF is also constantly adjusting its own strategy, and then playing its own role as an industrial "pusher".
If it were not for the impact of the epidemic, the unique and wonderful poetry film "Above the Clouds" would have met with fans across the country at this time.
From the perspective of external films, BJIFF has also made more attempts in the past two years, and the most important thing is to pay more attention to the follow-up release of the shortlisted films in the main competition unit (including the "official recommendation" unit temporarily set up due to the suspension of the competition in 2020).
Examples of this are "Persian Lessons" and "Time Machine" (renamed "Just Love Break Away" when they were released), of which "Persian Lessons" directly promoted its domestic release plans through the premiere at BJIFF, and the final national box office of the film exceeded 36 million yuan.
In fact, for Chinese film festivals, close ties with the film market should be an important way to enhance their influence.
In other words, if the threshold for foreign films entering the competition unit or even winning awards can be relatively lowered to enter the Chinese film market, or if they can get a guarantee of distribution in the Chinese film market, then perhaps China's film festivals and exhibitions can attract more high-quality foreign language new films to participate in their main competition units.
Not only that, in the past two years, BJIFF's competition unit has also shown a more "audience-friendly" attitude.
Just as the selectors and curators from the film selection pay attention to the balance between artistic quality and audience acceptance, the main competition unit of the "Temple of Heaven Award" and the sub-competition unit of "Focusing on the Future" have gradually opened to the public in the past two years, and in the eyes of film fans, they have jointly become an important part of the "Beijing Screening".
After all, in any case, rather than closing the door and boasting, it is more important for fans to buy tickets, see movies, and give personal judgments in time. In this regard, BJIFF's progress is obvious.
In fact, for a long time, film festivals in Asia will continue to occupy an "awkward" position in the international film festival system that has to face the competition between European and American film festivals. However, as a dynamic system of film festivals, it will always explore a more distinctive development path by constantly adjusting its own structure and prestige strategy.