Film festival pulls own plug
- Source: Global Times
- [08:18 April 20 2011]
- Comments
By Li Yanhui
Organizers announced Monday the cancellation of the 8th Documentary Film Festival China, to participants' surprise.
The official festival microblog at sina.com revealed Monday that the event, which was scheduled to be held in Songzhuang, Tongzhou district, from May 1 to 7, would no longer take place.
"I was surprised that they suddenly cancelled the event," director Xu Xin told the Global Times Tuesday.
Xu, who is best-known for his film Karamay, had submitted his new film Pathway to the festival for its world premiere, but organizers confirmed to him Monday that the festival was cancelled.
The organization Li Xianting's Film Fund began collecting documentaries and preparing for the festival in December 2010. According to the festival's posts on the Douban social networking site, the festival was founded in 2003 and was the first professional documentary film festival in the Chinese mainland. In seven years, it has screened more than 300 films from home and abroad.
"We cancelled it ourselves," festival art director Zhu Rikun told the Global Times Tuesday. "The overall situation was tense, and we had received a lot of pressure. We worried that the films to be shown would meet some problems in this environment and decided to cancel it." He would not explain specifically what pressures they had encountered.
"I was not aware of this festival before," a press department employee named Wang Songyang with the Songzhuang township government told the Global Times Tuesday. "As it's not the government's business, the civilian organizers may cancel it for any reason by themselves."
Xu expressed his disappointment, saying the Songzhuang festival is one of the two best documentary film festivals in China, as it is independent, has high standards for submissions and typically invites many world-famous film commentators. The festival, he said, has served to promote several important documentary films in the past.
"The festival is just a chance to exchange film-shooting skills. I can't understand why they feel tense," Xu said. "Organizers could refuse entry for some films that can't meet the requirements, but they shouldn't cancel the festival."
A festival organizer named Li Shanshan confirmed Tuesday that about 20 overseas guests, 10 directors and around 40 fans had registered to attend the festival, which was ready to open.
"The content of the films was not a problem," Li said. "It's only because it is a sensitive time." She said they had only prepared 26 films for the festival this year, and most of them had already aired during the Yunnan Multicultural Visual Festival in March.
In past years, the Songzhuang documentary film festival has annually aired about 50 films, usually in May.
