Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Round Table.
The lights are low, the screen is wide, and the applause is global!
Welcome to one of the world's most prestigious movie events, the 2025 Shanghai International Film Festival.
Let's break down the highlights from day one and preview what's lighting up across screens in Shanghai.
Coming to you live from Beijing this is Roundtable, I'm He Yang.
For today's program, I'm joined by Steve Hatherly and Yixian in the studio.
First on today's show...
Shanghai is rolling out the red carpet literally from June 13 to 22.
The 27th Shanghai International Film Festival is turning the city into a dazzling stage for global cinema.
With over 400 films from 71 countries and regions, and all -star jewelry, and movie buffs snapping up tickets in seconds, it's a celebration like no other.
And with the coveted Golden Goblet Awards set to unveil on the final day, we're diving into the glam, the grit, and the goosebumps of this unmissable cinematic event.
But let's rewind for a moment from its roots in 1993, the reform and opening -up period, to becoming China's only A -category international competitive film festival.
How has the SIFF carved out its niche on the global stage?
I mean when we talk about the city of Shanghai, a lot of people just get the impression of how modernity, how much modernity is presenting nowadays to the global stage, but Shanghai also features a very long history of filmmaking.
And the Shanghai International Film Festival was also born in the tide of the reform and opening up back in 1993.
In case you're not really familiar with this national policy here in China, that was a milestone, the reform and opening up of China's economic development.
That's when China's productivity and consumption capacity was mobilized.
That's when we adopted an export -oriented and investment -driven economic model where Chinese people back then started to know Denium, started to wear jeans, started to listen to Pavarotti and Michael Jackson.
That was the time when movie, international famous movie, blockbusters from the US, let's from Hollywood were gradually entering China and also around that time in 1994, the Shanghai International Film Festival was accredited by the International Federation of Film Producers Association as the first and the only international competitive feature film festival here in China until this day.
Yeah, it's a big deal, isn't it?
Yeah, it's really exciting and it's happening now.
And you mention that hard to say term, Golden Goblet.
It sounds like something from Harry Potter but it's not.
It's the film festival's main prize and it's a symbol of the traditional orientation culture.
It's an ancient Chinese wine container and it's been crafted into this beautiful shape and this really unique style.
It's a gorgeous prize.
And that's what everybody's trying to win this time around.
It's like giving a toast with a wine container to the winner of filmmaking in a way.
I like that notion of them using the golden goblet, the jinjue, as a way to represent the prize or, rather, the awards.
Can I share what the Hollywood Reporter had to say about the festival?
As I mentioned, this is a big deal internationally in the film world.
They said the Shanghai International Film Festival is set to launch in grand style, commemorating 120 years of Chinese cinema with a lineup packed with global talent, sold out screenings and ambitious industry conversations.
Almost from the moment movie cameras first started whirring in China, filmmakers have flocked to Shanghai, although Beijing boasts the country's first film, which I've never heard of this.
Maybe you have. 1905 is when it came out?
the battle of Ding -jun -shan?
Oh, yeah. That is exactly what it is.
You both got it right.
And also, we're gonna spotlight the 120th anniversary of Chinese cinema in the next couple of shows.
Yeah, really cool, right?
It continues on to say, There are cinemas everywhere, around 400 in Shanghai alone.
And each year, the public flocks to the landmark almost 10 -day event.
that was what was written from the Hollywood reporter.
So like I said, everybody's watching from the film industry Shanghai right now.
And also we're talking about the Golden Goblet Awards and that awards features five main competition categories and there's the main competition and also there's the Asian New Talent, the documentary category, the animation category and the short films category.
So each year these different sections bring together over 2000 films from more than a hundred countries and regions around the world.
And the competitions showcase a wide range of genres, not only from renowned film makers, but also from emerging new talents who may not yet be internationally recognized.
So this is also a stage for them as well.
And no matter the topic or the style that's being demonstrated, these film moves and inspires just audiences by telling different types of powerful stories and sharing the diverse cultures especially from an Oriental or from an Asian point of view I think that's very groundbreaking.
Yeah and it's international too.
The jurors for the Golden Goblet Award, there's 21 jurors from 13 countries and regions across Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Europe, and it's a wide distribution of countries and regions, and it represents the diverse landscape of global film cultures, which is really just a wonderful thing.
Isn't it just. If you blanked you probably missed it.
370 ,000 tickets were sold out in just one hour.
What exactly are moviegoers rising to see?
Well, there are several new movies, but also old movies being re -screening during this year's International Film Festival in Shanghai and the tickets, well this um this is according to a China Daily report, that the tickets for more than 600 screenings of 92 movies were sold out within the first hour after the box -office opened for the film festival on June the 5th.
So we're talking about altogether three hundred and seventy thousand tickets that were sold out in 60 minutes.
I can do better than that.
So the tickets, here's what they do.
They sell the tickets for the Golden Goblet Award winner.
Now they sell the tickets for the time slot of the top prize winner.
The thing is nobody knows who the top prize is going to go to yet.
But people are buying the tickets for that winner already.
Those tickets sold out in, I said I was gonna do better right?
Not an hour. 26 seconds they sold out and by the way for the golden goblet award there's 12 movies from home and abroad that have been shortlisted for the for that top prize.
So it's gonna be one out of those those 12 movies you're gonna see?
Yeah and that's the cool thing is that people are just buying tickets for the winner but they don't know which movie they're gonna be watching yet it's kind of I thought about it this morning it's kind of like the blind box of cinema.
Instead of getting your love left booboo yeah I know loaf oof oos are popular too but please don't buy them because they're the pirated versions yeah so instead of labooboo's you can get the yeah the really fantastic movie of the year that one could see and you don't really know what it is yet what else is on the best -selling list well apart from the best -selling list that we mentioned there were only there were also tickets to a series of three movies by the late American director David Lynch that include correct me if I'm wrong with the pronunciation of these movies haven't watched none of these
so they that includes Eraserhead, Lost Highway, and Mulholland Drive.
Yes Mulholland Drive that's a cool movie yeah Eraserheads from I think it's 1977 yeah it's a long time ago David Lynch made that film Lost Highway I didn't see Mulholland Drive is kind of this classic David Lynch movie though everybody seems to love that one Yeah and just given the fact that the director the renowned director passed away earlier this year January I think Right?
and just rejuvenated the interest in his movies and I have to admit that there was a period a time when I went through those a little pretentious I suppose but just wanted to know more of these like oh well -known movies around the world and I only realized later on that a few of these really strange poetic haunting and kind of surreal movies were all done by the renowned David Lynch and it's a great way to celebrate his work if you're interested and this is a wonderful time to catch up with some of these international classic pieces from back then, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Another recent one, The Brutalist which is a 2024 film, that's going to be showing, and also Nuovo Cinema Paradiso by Italian director Giuseppe Tornettore, who by the way is the jury president for the main competition section of the main awards, the Golden Goblet this year.
So there's lots of great local films to check out, there's lots of great international films to check out too.
David Lynch. If you're gonna watch a David Lynch movie, be aware that he was quite well known for being a visionary, meaning someone ahead of his time, but that also means a little weird. If you're not familiar, his comments on his films, for example Eraserhead from 1977, it's about this guy who marries a woman and she's pregnant and then the baby is like a lizard baby something.
And you know, the comments go from, oh wow, this is really unique and it depends, people love it because how can I interpret this?
Other people comment, what?
With David Lynch, it can get a little bit unique at time.
Yeah. So it's not really the conventional box office success kind of movies.
Not the really commercial kind of movies.
not like your Mission Impossible kind of movie it's more like the experimental makes you think and it's meant to make you not understand it fully after you finish watching it.
Well said there yeah.
Yeah and also we're okay now let's move on to the opening act.
Chen Kexin or Peter Chan's She's Got No Name or Jiang Yuanlong in Chinese dives into a notorious case from the 1940s Shanghai And why is this film generating buzz beyond the cinema walls?
I mean, first of all, it's meticulously recreating the urban landscape and the historical milieu of 1940's Shanghai, while also unraveling the tragic story of the accused's wife portrayed by very famous Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi.
And I actually watched the movie trailer of this one.
She's Got No Name. I got this feeling that this is some the type of movie that I'll be interested because it's a combination of horror, murder solving and also case cracking featured or rather staged by actresses and actors that I kind of have been following for the past few years and Jiang Ziyi.
She's of an international fame, and despite how glorious she might appear on the global stage or in her previous work, she looks so into her role, just judging from the trailer she's like pale and full of scars and bruises in a way that you just feel like finding out what's going on with her or her role.
So this is a 1940's Shanghai murder mystery detective story where the role Jiang Ziyi is portraiting murdered her husband but the thing is why did she do it how did she do it and if there's some somebody helping her yeah it's probably a domestic violence case I have my gut feeling tells me that and well Peter Chan or Chen Kwetian's latest film is definitely one to watch and he's one of Hong Kong's top directors who really knows how to connect with mainland audiences showing impressive versatility and a sharp sense for storytelling.
And there's Zhang Ziyi like Yuxian has mentioned, she burst onto the scene with her ...
well, actually this was in her twenties with Yu Jiao Long in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
I was going to ask, because that was kind of where she burst onto the international scene too.
But what I didn't know is, and that's a great movie if you haven't seen it.
What I didn't know was if that was kind of the beginning of her stardom here in China, too.
I think so, actually right before that, she starred in Zhang Yimou's Wode Fuqin Muqin, My Mother and Father, I suppose she, oh that was such a breath of fresh air when her face appeared in that movie.
And it was more of a village girl, first -time love, story of parents, and it was done in this really poetic but also Chinese village countryside way, which was very distinctive of Zhang Yimou's earlier cinematic language and that's what made her popular here in China.
Then there was Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon and then in her thirties, she starred as Gong -Ar in Wong Kar -Wei's The Grand Master, Yidai Zongshu.
Now in her 40s, could She's Got No Name become her most powerful and celebrated role yet?
And not every actress, obviously, gets a decade -defining role.
And it's a rare act to be famous for more than 10 years to start with.
So I'm eager to see how she brings this complex character onto the big screen.
And yeah also I saw that in Shanghai or if you live in Shanghai you probably know that Cafe Theater in Huangpu District is one with a lot of history and it's really—I know people who would like to go just to go to specific cinemas because they have this specific aura, and a long history, and you like to go enjoy specific movies in these specific venues.
And apparently this one has been transformed into a jiang yuan lay, a jiang yuan nong -themed cinema with exterior murals, lightbox posters.
And a dedicated stage installation.
Well, it seems like a lot of promotion budget has been given to this movie.
Oh, it might be tough to get tickets.
I'm assuming that it might be tough to get tickets for some of the bigger name films, but that theater sounds like it's one that everybody would want to go to.
Yeah, it's turning itself into a escape house.
Does that make sense?
Because the movie scene from the trailer, as I saw it, is pretty dark and horrifying in a way.
Perfect place for escape house plots.
Yeah, and the cinema, or this movie festival we're talking about here isn't just happening on the silver screen, its spilling into streets, cafes, and even shopping malls, literally turning Shanghai into a film carnival, from immersive tram rides and cinema themed murals to exclusive shopping deals with your movie ticket.
How is the festival giving local tourism and consumption a boost?
I mean this is really a new idea, isn't it?
because nowadays we see that cinemas they're cooperating with local businesses as well.
And nowadays, we see a lot of cinemas located inside shopping malls and there is one of such cinema in the Baoxian district in northern Shanghai that has teamed up with restaurants and retail stores in the same shopping mall where it's located, to launch exclusive joint promotions during the film festival.
So that, here's how it works.
So, if you get a ticket and with this cinema in Baoqian district and you have this ticket stuck in your hand, then also this ticket is designated with the festival screening, then you are allowed to enjoy special deals at participating businesses, such as the buy one get one free from say a drink shop, or there's shopping discounts in certain stores within that shopping center area, and even you can have parking perks like get free parking for two hours.
I would love that. Yeah no it's great isn't it?
I mean yeah these cross -promotional ideas are just waiting to be successful I think.
Another really cool thing that they're doing, and I think this will be really popular too, so they have an official movie map mini program that has launched and it's an interactive map that offers this kind of cinematic journey throughout Shanghai.
So what they did was they integrated over 120 years of the city's film history, and they've highlighted dozens of key movie -related locations including things like iconic filming sites or former historic cinemas.
And then it also features these vintage -style illustrations that were inspired by the aesthetics of the 1930s, all the way to the 1990s.
So they have a bunch of them.
There's eight themed exploration routes in total.
And what you can do is you can choose to take on a specific role, like a film restoration expert or a journalist, and then you follow a carefully designed route.
It's about three kilometres.
So it's not even really that long.
It wouldn't take you that long.
And it includes visits to more than six selected cinematic landmarks.
There's a bunch of storyline based tasks that you have to complete and this is very interactive isn't it?
For the users. So not it's not just a map saying go here this place is a cool historic site go there that's also fun.
No this is really immersive.
It's getting the audience, if you want to call them an audience there, involved in taking their little tour, cinematic tour around Shanghai.
What a great idea. Yeah, it's like a city walk, but surrounded in the filmmaking history locally there in Shanghai.
And I've already seen people taking photographs.
Having this hashtag of the the mini app you talked about, I think it's called Movie Land.
So they have this little frame while they're taking the the picture of a certain spot onto on that map and uploading it onto social media and acting certain say organizational groups.
And through that they can be collecting like small gifts and little perks.
I think that's really cool and yeah it's a fun way of engaging with young movie lovers these days and apart from that there's also this film and life handbook that are going coming out both in the digital way and printed versions for this year's film um film festival.
So the printed version was placed at all screening cinemas before the festival opens.
And take the Budo New District as an example.
So the handbook not only marks the exact locations of six local screening cinemas, but also thoughtfully just listed on the special services each cinema offers.
By special services I mean there's luggage storage, food and jam discounts.
Yeah. And also with the ticket stub, the opportunity of getting cultural and creative products it's also allocated to movie goers and there are exclusive badges you can collect for the number of movies you're going so basically the handbook is expected to become an essential film watching plus consumption guide.
Luggage storage at a movie theater, that's new to me.
But it's a great idea isn't it?
It's kind of like...
you know those Easter egg hunts?
This is a movie festival treasure hunt with a digital twist...
and sounds fun to me!
Let's talk about the heart of the competition, the Golden Goblet Awards.
With thousands of films vying for just a handful of spots, the stakes are high with a record breaking number of submissions.
What can we expect from this year's golden goblet contenders?
Well, it's said that this year's film festival really has achieved a record -breaking milestone, and that means that it receives over 3 ,900 film submissions for the Golden Goblet Awards, and that's across five different categories, representing 119 countries and regions across the globe.
And submissions from the Americas and Africa have seen significant growth, with the short film category experiencing an 18 % increase compared to 2024 and that's quoting from the news from shanghai city governmental website so it's pretty impressive this year that they're attracting more submissions more people participating into the festival and it's not just from shanghai or china alone that's a lot of movies to watch yeah 3900 submissions that that's a lot of watching.
For the main though, 12 films have been nominated for the award in the main competition category and 11 of those movies are making their world premiere which is very, very cool.
They're not all crime dramas, they're not all romance stories or family dramas, they span a diverse array of different topics and genres.
There's fantasy, there's suspense, there's ethics, there's dark humor, and the lineup features adaptations of renowned stage plays, also best -selling novels, and then you've got inspired works that were from real events too.
So there's lots and lots of different representation happening in terms of what's going on in the films themselves.
And additionally there's over a thousand eight hundred and twenty of the submitted films that will have their world premieres at the festival and more than 520 will have their international premieres.
That's very exciting, I'm sure the movie makers behind the scene, they're feeling thrilled because of this.
And the combined premiere rate exceeds 80%, marking the highest in the festival's history.
So you mentioned earlier, Steve, how the Golden Goblet's award jury is composed of 21 members.
And well, this year's jury is notably younger than previous years, especially in the Asian New Talent category, featuring members born in the 1980s, the 90s, and even post -2000s.
Like post -2000s, the oldest is only 25 years old, and they're part of the jury team with an average age of 35 years old, marking it the youngest jury in the festival's history.
That's quite impressive.
I think that's interesting, because maybe this is answering to one critique internationally with a lot of these movie festivals, that is, your jurors are.
Without. So you don't really represent what the average movie goer wants to go see.
Of course, this is some, you know, professional panel of judges, but you also don't want to be completely or very tone deaf to what's happening in the cinematic industry and let's face it, since COVID, the movie industry is going through a pretty difficult era.
It's a post -COVID era when people's viewing habits have changed.
And we've talked about on this show before that the music and movie industry combined is making less than what the gaming industry is bringing in.
So this is a constantly shifting entertainment landscape globally.
It's great to have these kind of platforms to remind us why movies matter and to bring the glory of movie back to our purview a little bit more and also to have so many new premieres for people to enjoy and we're going to bring you more information from the Shanghai International Movie Festival.
This is a film festival that shows us that movies are more than entertainment.
They are emotion, connection, and cultural exchange, and No Place brings the spirit to life quite like Shanghai.
And tomorrow, we shift the lens.
How is the Shanghai International Movie Festival helping bridge cultures and boost international collaboration in film?
We'll take you behind the scenes of global film exchanges and what they mean for the future of storytelling.
is calling.
