Shanghai Film Festival 2024: A Showcase of Global Cinema and Emerging Talents

The 26th Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF) is set to dazzle audiences from June 14-23 with an impressive array of films. This year’s main competition boasts 14 entries, including the latest offerings from celebrated Chinese directors Guan Hu, Wei Shujun, Gu Changwei, and Zhang Dalei.

Fifty films will compete for the coveted Golden Goblet Awards. The lineup includes 11 films in the Asian New Talent category, five each in the animated and documentary feature categories, and 15 short films. This edition marks a new record for SIFF, featuring 38 world premieres, along with six international and six Asian premieres.

The main competition highlights four Chinese films, the most in recent years. Noteworthy are A Man And A Woman directed by Guan Hu, starring Huang Bo and Ni Ni, and Don’t Worry, Be Happy by Wei Shujun, featuring Huang Xiaoming, Lu Hsiao-fen, and Zu Feng. Guan’s Black Dog recently clinched the top prize at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section.

Other significant Chinese entries include The Hedgehog (formerly Call Me Crazy), starring Ge You and Karry Wang from TFIBoys, directed by Berlinale Silver Bear winner Gu Changwei (Peacock), and Starfall, directed by Zhang Dalei, whose short film Day Is Done won a Silver Bear at the Berlinale in 2021.

Most main competition films are world premieres, including Another German Tank Story by Jannis Alexander Kiefer, which will also debut at the Munich International Film Festival. The international premieres feature Chasing Johnny by France’s Baptiste Debraux and Her Second Chance by Italy’s Vito Palmieri.

Celebrating its 20th anniversary, the Asian New Talent competition will showcase 11 world premieres: six from China, two from India, and one each from Iran, Japan, and a Russia-Kazakhstan-Italy co-production.

Leading the main competition jury is Vietnamese-French filmmaker Tran Anh Hung, last year’s Best Director winner at Cannes with The Taste Of Things. The Asian New Talent jury is chaired by Chinese director Cao Baoping, whose Cock And Bull won a Golden Goblet for Best Actor Liu Ye at SIFF in 2016. The awards ceremony will take place on June 22.

SIFF will open on June 15 with Red Radio Over Shanghai, a dance drama directed by Zheng Dasheng and Cui Yi. The film tells the true story of a young man managing a secret radio station in Shanghai during the 1930s and 1940s.

Golden Goblet Awards 2024 Nominations
(All world premieres unless otherwise stated)

Main Competition: Stars of the Silver Screen
A Bathroom Of One’s Own (Spain) Dir. Lucía Casañ Rodríguez
A Man And A Woman (China-HK) Dir. Guan Hu
Adult (Argentina) Dir. Mariano Gonzalez
Another German Tank Story (Germany) Dir. Jannis Alexander Kiefer
Chasing Johnny (France) International Premiere, Dir. Baptiste Debraux
Don’t Worry, Be Happy (China) Dir. Wei Shujun
The Hedgehog (China) Dir. Gu Changwei
Her Second Chance (Italy) International Premiere, Dir. Vito Palmieri
Living In Two Worlds (Japan) Dir. Mipo O
Silence Of The Seashell (Bangladesh-Germany) Dir. Kamar Ahmad Simon
Snowflakes In My Yard (Georgia-Russia) Dir. Bakur Bakuradze
Starfall (China) Dir. Zhang Dalei
The Divorce (Kazakhstan) Dir. Daniyar Salamat
The Wasteman (Iran) Dir. Ahmad Bahrami

Asian New Talent: Tomorrow’s Cinema Icons Unveiled
Days, 3 Murders (Iran) Dir. Masoud Amini Tirani
Bird Of A Different Feather (India) Dir. Manohara K
Dreaming Of Mother And Home (China) Dir. Wang Xinrui
Fishbone (China) Dir. Zhang Xuyu
Friday, Funfair (China) Dir. Zeng Zhi
Habitat (China) Dir. Zhang Luoping
In The Name Of Fire (India) Dir. Abhilash Sharma
Longer Than A Day (Russia-Kazakhstan-Italy) Dir. Malika Mukhamejan
The Absent (China) Dir. Lu Dan
The Lost Daughter (China) Dirs. Zang Lianrong, Xu Ruogu
Vicissitude (Japan) Dir. Takuro Ijichi