The Paper's reporter Chen Chen
Literary, niche, young, vigorous... These keywords may be the labels that come to mind when mentioning the Xining FIRST Youth Film Festival. As a film festival that has gone through 15 years and is unique in the industry and film fan circles, the films produced by FIRST, although the number of final audiences is not large, but the brand and reputation have been launched.
However, the growing sense of fragmentation is something that the industry cannot ignore. On the one hand, with the emergence of new directors, the continuous development of technology, and the continuous reduction of shooting thresholds, more and more young people are struggling to devote themselves to this industry; on the other hand, the industry is anxious to find a director who can control the creation of genre films, and the market urgently needs more highly completed genre films to stabilize the audience's basic disk.
At the Xining FIRST Film Festival in August this year, the organizers released the news of opening a "parallel film festival" in Chengdu, a new film festival called "Surprise", which will focus on the presentation, exploration and exploration of genre films, aiming to effectively open up the market, audience and filmmakers' skills and experience collections, and open up a world for genre films.
FIRST Chengdu Surprise Film Festival
From September 20 to 26, for nearly a week, this FIRST "second child" also showed the industry and the audience with an unexpected "surprise" appearance. "This is a surprise" has become a phrase heard almost every day at the film festival, and most of the time, this sentence represents some "accident" beyond control.
For six days, surprise and joy intertwined. The first time in Chengdu, the problems exposed and the wavering confusion faced by those involved in it may be the meaningful part of the continuation of FIRST's rampage.
Side A: Why we need "surprises"
Surprise Film Festival is a good name, in addition to this literal meaning of a certain expectation, split, "surprise" represents thriller, suspense, horror, fantasy, science fiction, "hi" represents comedy, love, animation and other films that also have a clear division of genres. Its English name is FIRST Fantastic Film Festival Chengdu, and the corresponding literal translation is "Fantastic Film Festival". In fact, it is also a branch of a type of film festival exhibition that is not uncommon in the world, such as the Fantasy Film Festival in Montreal, the Strange Film Festival in Paris, and the Bucheon Fantasy Film Festival in South Korea.
At a time when domestic film festivals are gradually converging and venture capital units are blossoming everywhere, FIRST starts from the sample observation of its own 15 years of development and tries to open up a new soil for young creators. Compared with the encouragement in Xining, first Chengdu Surprise Film Festival tries to open up a new creative trial space, and encourages film newcomers to master the rules of the game - to understand the genre and understand the audience. On this basis, it further collides with contemporary issues in a genre way to produce a unique and effective expression.
"In the case of an increasingly weak market, FIRST, which has accompanied the author for more than ten years, in such a market, it is indeed worried that the survival path of young directors will become narrower and narrower, so it wants to help young directors find new tracks and new living space." Liang Jing, producer of films such as "Eight Hundred" and "King Kong Chuan", said.
"I've always known FIRST and I know there are a lot of great films and authors here, but the company's attributes are there, and the tone of the previous (FIRST) movies doesn't match the company's appeal, so I haven't been here either. This time I heard that I was going to do a genre film, so I came. Liang Lin, general manager of Emperor Film Production and Project Development, may represent the expectations of mainstream film companies for the works of young creators.
However, coming here, what to do, the first year of the surprise film festival is not so clear. When everything that happens in Chengdu revolves around the "type", this film festival tries to observe more urgent environments and markets, feel the most direct needs and pains, and focus on the "type". FIRST Labs, Surprise Screenings, Surprise Forums, Spin-offs... This new film festival of newborn calves has its own temperament and ambition.
The FIRST Feature Film Lab and the First Producers Lab, which have been in the sixth phase, as the main body of this surprise film festival, look forward to establishing a set of in-depth cultivation paths with exquisite refinement of film texts, extreme training of audiovisual language, and direct dialogue on the distribution port. During the film festival, the representatives of the fifth phase of the feature film lab film program were involved in industry dialogue with activities such as short film trial screening, script reading, and 1v1 negotiation after more than 8 months of cultivation, while the creators of the sixth phase of the feature film lab film project conducted a 7-day playwriting workshop with five dramawriting mentors such as Pan Zhizhi, Rao Xiaozhi, Xin Yukun, Yang Qing, and Zheng Dasheng based on the rooted script. In the Grand Hyatt Hotel of Qunguang, the main venue of the film festival, a special script reading room was opened. Mature actors such as Zhou Dongyu, Zhou Zhouwei, and Wang Xun will participate in the script reading of the new director, so that the creators can more intuitively feel the appearance that the text may appear when it is implemented on the actor.
Zhou Dongyu participated in the reading of the script
On the night of the surprise ceremony on September 26, six sixth-issue feature film lab works received surprise shooting gold sponsored by companies in the industry, and one fifth feature film lab work won a million project start-up fund sponsored by Huang Xiaoming. It has stepped out of the feature film laboratory of commercial films such as "Violent Silence" and "Two Tigers", and officially changed its name to the Genre Film Laboratory this year, and the projects that have come out of here also have a clearer attitude towards the audience and the market.
Feature Film Lab Roundtable Discussion Scene
The new feature film lab was simply renamed the Genre Film Lab and will continue to be used thereafter. Different types of creations such as martial arts, suspense crime, family, love, and youth growth constitute the appearance of this issue of the feature film lab selected for the film plan, and the creators do not indulge in a single routine narrative and expression of "clichés", but try to be under the type of expression, but also wrapped in the care of the times and the output of universal emotions. However, young creators also show a clear dazedness about the degree between self-expression and "pleasing" the audience.
The project "Shameless Road", which was "matched" by the Emperor, has always been called "Gone" before the public statement, and the father-son character construction under the classic narrative is integrated into the realist theme of the crime genre. Producer Liang Jing praised the director's temporary name change, "at least in terms of the name is a bit of a genre film." ”
Shameless Way
In the past few days, Chen Lizhi, another judge from the market, who has publicized films including "Mermaid", "I Am Not a Medicine God", "Crazy Alien" and other films, has complained more than once why the projects of this type of film festival are still called "unknown" names such as "Hexi", "Hezhou", "Spring Sleepy", and "Shangchang".
Selected for the Film Program of the Year
As a "laboratory producer", Huang Xiaoming, real money and silver to fund the progress of new projects, he selected "Hexi", is a martial arts film that has been rarely seen in the mainstream film market in recent years. The author unifies the deep speculation of home and country in the genre narrative, continuing the thick context of Western Chinese films, and also showing mature expression and realization ambition in the public presentation of the project. And the project has also sparked heated debate among judges about whether audiences need such a film.
"Hexi"
In addition, in 6 days, the young producers of the Producer Lab, with the 100,000 funds distributed by the organizing committee, each challenged themselves to shoot short films with different styles and expressions, fans enjoyed the Sichuan version of "Let the Bullets Fly" in the open air screening, listened to the imagination of science fiction authors on Chinese science fiction films at Fangsuo Bookstore and Paragon Cinema, and participated in lecture workshops on movie trailers, film soundtracks and color grading at Paragon Cinema, all of which undoubtedly narrowed the distance between Chengdu audiences and movies.
Chunxi Road open-air screening of super short films
FIRST is very good at narrowing the distance between the film and the local audience in the city, and the bustle of Chunxi Road becomes related to the movie. A young man who came to Chengdu for tourism, after inadvertently encountering a "surprise" on the way through Chunxi Road, participated in all the public activities of the film festival without landing, saying that each one was full of rewards. During the open-air screening, young people who had failed to register for the laboratory and volunteers cried out in excitement when they raised their hands to speak, triggering another fan who did not wait for the festival's ambassador Li Yifeng to join the crying camp en masse. The soil in which all this happened is very young and very "first".
Side B: Surprise and joy to experience from 0 to 1
But regrets, accidents, doubts, and controversies also occupy all the moments of the film festival.
For example, the vast majority of the screenings have not been carried out, and have been complained by fans as "film festivals without films", such as the 12 planned projects incubated by the sixth feature film laboratory, which were drastically cut in half by the tutors because of the unqualified genre; for example, cao Baoping, honorary chairman of the producer workshop, directly "suggested that this workshop be cancelled"; for example, the original genre forum eventually evolved into a "spit conference" for the guests to the organizers...
The biggest regret is that the screening, which is the most important part of the film festival, did not go as scheduled. Looking through the film festival manual, it is not difficult to see the curator's intentions.
The "Jianghu Memory" unit gathers classic martial arts films including "Double Flag Town KnifeMan", "Assassin Nie Yinniang", "Empty Mountain Lingyu", "Judo Dragon and Tiger List", "Huang Feihong's Lion King Battle", "New Dragon Gate Inn" and other classic martial arts films, from Hu Jinquan to Hou Xiaoxian, from Xu Ke to Du Qifeng, a group of martial arts genre masters with great aesthetic evaluation value, which are the rivers and lakes of Chinese films.
The "Midnight Hard Candy" unit includes films such as "The Shining", "Horror Cruise", "28 Days of Shock", "Alien" and other film history that can bring the ultimate experience. Originally this unit was arranged late at night, with thriller lovers gathering in the cinema, perhaps a romance unattainable at other film festivals...
Beginning with the absence of the opening film "God Eater", which was originally scheduled to be screened in open air, these carefully packaged films did not reach the audience for various reasons.
Cancelled open-air screenings
The cinema hall did several "industrial screenings" for insiders, and the effect was not satisfactory. As a newcomer director, if you are making an author's film, as long as you show some eye-catching parts in the work, whether it is the exploration and pursuit of audiovisual language, the deep concern for reality, and the pioneering innovation of the theme form, it is the reason for affirmation. In the genre film creation, which is oriented to the audience and directly points to the field of pleasant perception appeal, the common problems of newcomer directors such as jerky performance, plot loopholes, and rough technology can directly lead to the drama of the viewing experience, which in turn affects the evaluation and success or failure of the entire film.
"In fact, what I am most worried about is that the first and second creations of young filmmakers are relatively casual, there will not be so many technical considerations, and there will not be so many technical and empirical capabilities, so Xining's positioning is particularly suitable and especially right. But doing genre (film) is not the same thing, do we have enough genres to support this film festival? Cao Baoping, honorary chairman of the film festival, raised such a question.
Cao Baoping
"Do we really need a platform for genre film festivals? Compared with the very mature Xining Youth Film Festival, is the Chengdu Surprise Film Festival still limited to the category of young directors?" Cao Baoping proposed that unlike xining, a young hot land, if Chengdu wants to focus on the genre of film, it should consider accepting more mature authors from different backgrounds. However, Cao Baoping, who is regarded as an excellent model of genre paradigm and author expression, often has a sense of powerlessness and inexplicable confusion in the face of creation. In the preface to the film festival manual, he wrote, "In terms of truly mature and high-quality genre films, we are still far from sitting on a fertile soil for genre creation. ”
Half of the projects renamed the Genre Film Lab were ruthlessly cut off by the mentor group composed of Xin Yukun, Rao Xiaozhi, Yang Qing, Zheng Dasheng, and Pan, who were selected from the Xining FIRST venture capital project and came to Chengdu to become an anachronistic existence. LI Ziwei, CEO of FIRST, said that Xin Yukun and Zheng Dasheng were all "fine", "Talking about art in Xining, we must maintain the original intention of the movie, go to their game rules, is to do the movie we want in our hearts." Come here (Chengdu) one more than one emphasis on the genre, the audience, has always emphasized that we have to abide by the rules of the game. ”
Director Xin Yukun
Director Xin Yukun reviewed the work of these days, is "naturally clear to know what to do, very clear to help everyone to the genre of creation to sort out and deduce", he stressed that those cut projects are not bad, "we spent three days with the author to talk, his type is not clear, but has some genre elements, far from being a genre film, is it possible to improve and develop in the genre? But some of these authors have a very clear and strong desire to express themselves, and the only goal of doing this is to make the film look a certain way he expects it to be. Then there is no need to break him, he can go to another venture capital or a workshop that suits his temperament to try. ”
Xin Yukun stressed that there is no high or low between genre films and author films, and genres do not mean that they represent the market and can make money, "Genre is the fulcrum of your creative techniques, and after you master this, it is actually to help you create better." ”
Chen Lizhi played the role of blackface almost the whole time in the review unit of the laboratory, and he constantly questioned the author, "This project, I don't know what to watch, I don't know why the audience wants to come to see you talk about this thing? "The director should think of the market from the beginning of creation, the genre film director is a product manager, you should consider from the beginning of the product audit, who is your work made to show?" "Why did we come to Chengdu to do this film festival?" Every company, every creator, everyone who comes here should think clearly, what is the purpose of what we are doing this? A lot of times the words are not rough, and I also realize that the FIRST parent Who has been too "protecting" young creators over the years said, "I just need people like him to help me tell these young creators some 'big truths' from the industry." ”
On the one hand, one question after another is raised, and on the other hand, everyone can clearly see the root cause of these doubts, pointing to the lack and imperfection of the soil of the Chinese film genre itself, and the industry's desire for this soil.
"Before I came here, I kept asking, what is this place for, what can I do for here? Li Ziwei just told me, come on, let's grope together again. So these days we've been in this process of groping. Producer Liang Jing is very busy at this year's Chengdu Film Festival, giving workshops to new producers, and also participating in project reviews and various forums. She repeats the above passage on every occasion, the answer is not so clear, but the desire is already urgent. "It's too cold in the industry right now, but here, because of love, everyone is still full of hope."
Liang Jing
"In my opinion, there are Chinese genre films, but not every type of track has appeared, we have our own advantages, for example, comedy in the world of movies, is not the largest proportion of genre films, but in China (it) yes. But similar to thrillers, suspense films, science fiction films, we may be just getting started, or not yet. It's a platform, and for the industry, what we want is to be able to give these creators some help so that they can drive this car. Liang Lin from the Emperor said.
Cao Baoping will still struggle with where the foundation of the film festival with this type of theme lies. "Genre films first, or genre films first?" This is a chicken-egg relationship problem like this, the lack of mature genre films, which is an unavoidable problem of Chinese films as an industry. "If you want to understand something, you have to have something first, so let's try to start with it."
Plum for
In any case, the first FIRST CHENGDU SURPRISE FILM FESTIVAL closed, leaving a lot of question marks. Its appearance is gradually outlined in the process of facing and thinking about various problems. "Everyone knows that going from 0 to 1 is more precious than going from 1 to 100. It is still a one-year-old child, you do not know how to expect a one-year-old child to be able to clearly tell who I am, what kind of person I am, but the direction of effort and the expectations for the future are already there, the industry also needs and willing to work together for the attitude there, now can only say that the process is a surprise. Plum said.
Editor-in-charge: Cheng Yu
Proofreader: Luan Meng