In 2022, the UK-China Film Collab (UCFC) will be organising an online and offline Chinese-language film festival in the UK. The festival’s name and themes will be revealed in due course via an official announcement. Our online submission is now open for all Chinese filmmakers, both in Greater China and abroad.
Introduction
The global pandemic has made it difficult to attend cinemas. Streaming and online video-on-demand platforms deal a heavy blow to overseas independent cinemas, making it increasingly tougher for Chinese-language films to be screened abroad. At the start of 2022, the Rotterdam Film Festival, that was scheduled to be held offline at the end of January, was also moved online due to the pandemic. Online screenings are gradually becoming a trend overseas. The raging pandemic has devastated many foreign-film-screening-focused British independent cinemas, film festivals as well as hindered the screening of Chinese language films.
Where is the living space for Chinese language films overseas? In what form will audiences expect the silver screen to be presented in the future?
The Theme of Screening
Registered in both London and Edinburgh, UCFC, with a global perspective, aims to discover and promote Chinese language film talents and compelling narratives, and to facilitate all-around, sustainable exchanges and collaborations between the UK and China in film arts, culture, and commerce.
Our Past Events
In 2021, UCFC collaborated with UK independent distributor Trinity CineAsia and Filming East, co-presented the Chinese Cinema Season – the biggest online Chinese-language film festival in the UK and European history. In addition to curating two thematic sections for the film festival, “Shanghai Animation Film Studio Retro” (12 films) and “Hong Kong, Reimagined” (13 films), UCFC also organised ten workshops relating to the international market, UK-China co-production, the exhibition and audience development for Chinese-language films in the UK (e.g. Post-Millennials’ international receptions towards Chinese-language film) as well as several Q&A sessions with film directors.
Apart from film festivals, UCFC has been actively organising different online screenings and encouraging industry dialogue since the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020. Up to now, we have organised over fifty of bilingual events.
The film festival we are planning for this year will adopt a hybrid model of online and offline, using video as a medium to showcase the dynamic nature of Chinese society and individuals to UK audiences through carefully curated thematic screenings, retrospectives, public screenings, and roundtable discussions. The aim of the festival is to showcase Chinese independent images as a way to explore social issues such as female representation, cultural identity, regionalism and many more; We hope to orchestrate an “unexpected encounter” with Chinese-language films, to appreciate Chinese avant-garde experimental moving images, narrative and aesthetics. Our target audience is young audiences aged between 16 to 30 in the UK as well as those who are curious about this rising international film market.
Call for Volunteers
We are now looking for volunteer assistants to support the film festival’s two particular departments: Public Relations and Operations.
Operations Assistant:
Assist the Lead of Operations with operational issues. Schedule meetings and team building sessions as required. Prompt answering the questions of staff and other stakeholders. Provide excellent logistics and maintaining the festival’s key operation technologies. This role reports to the Lead of Operations of the film festival.
Public Relations Assistant:
Public Relations Assistant is an entry-level media and public relation professional responsible for providing administrative support to PR department and senior by performing various activities and tasks in order to maintain and enhance the perception of client among various internal and external audiences. This role reports to the Lead of Public Relations.
If you are interested in joining the festival’s organising committee, please send your CV and statement to jiakai.nie@ukchinafilm.uk and liao.zhang@ukchinafilm.uk no later than January 22nd.
We look forward to hearing from you!
