Shanghai is a city made for the camera –  nearly every corner looks ready for a close-up. Just steps from the Shanghai Film Art Center (a key SIFF landmark), Xinhua Road unfolds the century-old story of Columbia Circle, one of the city’s best-known international neighborhoods.

Along the street, British, German, Spanish and Italian architecture sits beside elegant villas that blend Eastern and Western design. Walk here and it’s more than sightseeing: it feels like stepping into a vintage film, where cultures meet and Shanghai’s past plays on into the present.