The Beijing Independent Film Festival, sponsored by the Li Xianting Film Fund, will kick off this Saturday in the Songzhuang suburb of Beijing, running from August 18-26. With over 100 feature and short films in the program, the festival’s lineup far exceeds those of previous years. It also marks a remarkable turnaround from the difficulties encountered last year’s events sponsored by the Li Xianting Film Fund, when both the Beijing Independent Documentary Festival and the Beijing Independent Film Festival operated tenuously under threat of shutdown. This year’s Beijing Independent Film Festival effectively combines those two events: the official program announcement lists the BIFF in its ninth year, when in fact its namesake had only been running for six years, while last year’s Documentary Festival would have been its eighth edition.
The festival program is organized into sections for Fiction, Documentaries (including Competition entries and special screenings), and Experimental Films. The festival opens with Huang Ji’s Egg and Stone, which won the Tiger award at this year’s Rotterdam International Film Festival, and closes with Oh the San Xia, a documentary by Wang Libo.
To our knowledge the festival schedule is currently unavailable online. Here is a list of fiction features and competition documentaries screening at the festival:
Fiction Features:
Egg and Stone, dir. Huang Ji
The Young Play Games, The Old Play Tai Chi, dir. Lei Yong
Miss Turan, dir. Zhai Xiaokang
Burned Wings, dir. Zheng Kuo
Four Ways to Die in My Hometown, dir. Chai Chunya
Here Then, dir. Mao Mao
The Empire, dir. Huang Zijuan
Waiting for God, dir. Gan Xiao’er
Documentary Feature Competition:
The Lost River, dir. Tian Bo, Wang Miaoxia
Born in Beijing, dir. Ma Li
The Folk Memory Documentary Project: Satiated Village, dir. Zou Xueping
The Folk Memory Documentary Project: Luo Village: Ren Dingqi and Me, dir. Luo Bing
Island, dir. Mao Mao
The Aged Spring, dir. Liu Dedong
Money and Honey, dir. Li Jinghui
Mama Rainbow, dir. Fan Popo
The Stage, dir. Wu Yaodong
The Days 2, dir. Wei Xiaobo
To Relive, dir. Gui Shuzong
Chinese Concerto, dir. Wang Bo
Gold Everywhere, dir. Li Xiaofeng
The Station, dir. Du Haipeng
Oh the San Xia, dir. Wang Libo
