With blades turning and the lights on, concerted efforts are made to create light. 

 

The spotlight on the white screen carries the dream of every filmmaker. Through practical short film creation training, the inaugural BJIFF TALENTS make the screen light up with short films. From creation to completion, the short film achievements made in the BJIFF TALENTS are finally shown at the BJIFF TALENTS Premiere and in the Online Exhibition section on iQIYI.

 

A well-crafted short film is the beginning of a career path for young filmmakers. After half a year of training in the BJIFF TALENTS, each young director has completed their own short film with a unique style that takes a clear-out stand. The new post-90s generation of filmmakers is growing from stealth.

 

 

BJIFF TALENTS of the 11th BJIFF – Beijing Film Market is a Chinese language short film training program for excellent young filmmakers helping them go from screenwriting to filmmaking. With the help and leadership of the coaching panel and producers, it supports young filmmakers through an intensive creation + production coaching training program. Through adaptation and meeting of the minds in the creative context, these young filmmakers integrate the story with the individual through practical training and expresses themselves to the public through image creation.

 

The BJIFF TALENTS offers young creators great creative space to build different dimensions of the world, providing a positive and active guidance to society. It sets up a team of professional instructors and producers to lead young directors to experience a complete process of production, complete with the most professional industry resources and technical support. The significance of the training process is particularly important while completing a short film.

 

At the premiere, the BJIFF TALENTS creators and industry guests experienced "ideological recovery" as the short films were screened.

More highlights of the BJIFF TALENTS

 

The Cage directed by Chen Linpeng tells a story that on the jubilant New Year's Eve, the heroine as a Beijing drifter is trapped in the bathroom at home and there is only the AI-enabled device that communicates with her. After coming across a painful dilemma, she sets out again in a new year.

 

Greatly touched after reading a piece of news, Director Chen decided to produce a fact-based film, challenging shooting in a single space of 4 square meters. In The Cage, from a social point of view, he explores the true and primitive desire of human for life after experiencing despair, loneliness and fear. Producer Yang Cheng believes that a successful director must be a good writer and a good producer in addition to holding their end of the bargain. It is necessary to learn to enlist the help of others and also be independent with no illusions.

 

Angle tells the story of Anyang, a man with the dual identity of a successful writer labeled with feminism and a candid camera addict. In an "interview", a female reporter who was once photographed secretly by Anyang closely questions him and exposes his evil deeds.

 

In Angle, director Chen Yujia envisages a "resurrection" of thoughts of being courageous to expose and punish evil deeds that symbolize social progress. As the youngest director in the BJIFF TALENTS, he tried for the first time to portray a female subject from a male perspective. Chen said that there may be a different feeling as the change in the relationship between a man and a woman is accompanied by a sense of game. In the early days of training in the BJIFF TALENTS, Chen Yujia had thoughts about whether he is fit for director, and he found the answer he wants. He also expressed that he wants to shoot something different, which of course still conforms to the basic narrative law. Looking forward, Chen also hopes to make works that are more fresh in China.

 

The Tiger Within directed by Huang Xiaopeng tells the story of a real estate salesperson who is gradually paralyzed in his life with a “996” work schedule – working from 9:00AM to 9:00PM, six days a week. During the investigation of the tiger-like people, he is inspired by the tiger-like people’s rebellious spirit of, so he become a tiger-like man and rises up to resist.

 

Director Huang Xiaopeng thinks that the BJIFF TALENTS is a place where trial and error is allowed, which allows him to continue to try and improve. He claims this is a very meaningful thing in the BJIFF TALENTS. Compared with the big screen, you can see a lot of things that you couldn't see in the early stage of creation. With some deep feelings, each young director has created a work imprinted with their own style and unique thoughts.

 

Based on his own office experience, Huang uses a unique perspective of odd-jobbers to actively break the ice, "resuscitating" and releasing a fearless spirit of resistance. What Chen Jie, producer of The Tiger Within, feels most is that the big screen still comes with its own demands for light and shadow, structure, details and acting. Watching the films once again allowed her to correct her awe of the big screen. She hopes there will be great works worthy of the big screen designation among future films.

 

Lausanne directed by Zhou Jinghao narrates a story of two ballet girls from materially different backgrounds competing for the qualification of the world competition called "Lausanne". Under the pressure of their own mother, the two girls lose the friendship between them, while at the same time becoming the spiritual strength of each other. In the end, they regain friendship.

 

As the only director with an interdisciplinary background in the BJIFF TALENTS, he chooses ballet containing elements of beauty as well as rigor and cruelty like competitive sport as the carrier to reflect the relationship between mother and daughter and childhood friendship. Zhou said that he is keen to learn new things by shooting in his unfamiliar field, with the mentality of continuous learning as the driving force for artistic creation. For him, it is a rare opportunity to learn in the company of an instructor on the spot. Zhou believes that the BJIFF TALENTS offers a particularly valuable learning opportunity, where he realized that teamwork and different ideas in the shooting process can lead to something different.

 

In Lausanne, director Zhou Jinghao explores what is the softest in the backs of people’s minds and "relives" the precious childhood friendship of every adult. Producer Fu Jia said that “small as it is, the sparrow has all the vital organs.” She views a short film as difficult as a feature film, because to make a complete short film in a limited timeframe, both industrialization and artistic creation are integral in the process.

 

She also said that the reason for producing short films in the BJIFF TALENTS is to help young directors get off to a right start in their future careers. Therefore, as behind the birth of each short film, there was the assistance of the coaching panel and the guidance of a producer.

 

Mr. Leste Chen, supervisor of the coaching panel, was present at the premiere. During the whole process of his participation, he thinks that the most special part of the BJIFF TALENTS is differentiation and diversification, and that any short film narrating an account of a story, characters or emotions is all a seed, no matter what kind of director. A lot of seeds were planted in the BJIFF TALENTS. Chen hopes that all of the directors involved will take time and works to prove how precious the seeds planted back then are.

 

The process from an idea to a completed short film is the process of a seed sprouting and growing. The BJIFF TALENTS provides a professional test field for the incubation of young filmmakers. Curator Chen Caiyun said that the BJIFF TALENTS wants to try something different and enable young directors to experience an industrialization process to prepare for future feature films. In the BJIFF TALENTS, senior producers were paired with young filmmakers, along with a panel of specialized instructors from the industry in support of young directors. 

 

With full-process and practical training as requirements, the BJIFF TALENTS allocates outstanding industry resources and paves the way of practice for talents to enter the market to support young filmmakers and cultivate Chinese young film talents. 

 

Combining professionalism and practice from script writing, on-location efforts, standardized post-production to film premiere, it is true that young filmmakers still need time to settle on this career path as a film dream maker. Creation is boundless, but production requires standards. Every director constantly improved and grew rapidly in the BJIFF TALENTS, and has a new understanding of film production. It is hoped that every seed can continue to grow on the test field of BJIFF TALENTS.

Special thanks go to the partners of the BJIFF TALENTS:

 

Thanks go to CINERENT for providing shooting equipment in support of shooting short films in the BJIFF TALENTS all the way; to SOUNDFIRM for providing the post-production sound production service; to Image Forestt for providing the post-production DI grading support; to Hao Vision for providing the post-production coordination and data management service; and to Universal Production Music for providing cooperative support of music copyright on cans free of charge.

 

The first-ever BJIFF TALENTS, where dreams take root, light and shadow find their way home and the lens records passion, supports young filmmakers by connecting them to industry resources, paving practical channels for talents to enter the market and connecting the "last mile" of the entire industry chain. We also expect more young forces to head for the future of Chinese-speaking filmmakers on the high-speed train of the BJIFF!