2018 BRICS film festival line up announced

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As one of the important parts of cultural communication and cooperation of the BRICS summit, the BRICS Film Festival, which rotates between BRICS members, kicks off today in Durban, South Africa.

The festival aims to celebrate some of the world's great and undiscovered film productions from the BRICS countries and to inspire more cooperation.

According to the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), who has being requested by the Department of Arts and Culture South Africa (DAC) as the national film funding body implementing the festival, the format consists of screening two feature films from each country in the competition category and three feature films in the non-competition category.

Durban Skyline at Dusk. /VCG Photo

The lineup

The lineup of this year’s BRICS Film Festival has been announced, and each BRICS member country will have a day to showcase five of their recent films. Two of the five films will be selected for the competition by a panel of experts from the BRICS countries. The lineup is as follows:

Monday 23 July is South Africa; Tuesday 24 is Russia; Wednesday 25 is India; Thursday 26 is China and Friday 27 is Brazil.

Still of the South African film “Five Fingers for Marseilles”. /Sina Photo

The films selected in the Competition are: “Beyond the River” and “Five Fingers for Marseilles” of South Africa; “How Viktor ‘the Garlic’ Took Alexey ‘the Stud’ to the Nursing Home” and “The Age of Pioneers” of Russia; “Newton” and “Village Rockstars” of India; “Kung Fu Yoga” and “I Belonged to You” of China; “Araby” and “Gabriel and the Mountain” of Brazil.

Poster of the Chinese film "Kungfu Yoga". /Sina Photo

The films will compete for the Golden Rhino award, and the winner will be awarded at a closing event on Friday.

China's other films at the festival

“Half the Sky”, which consists of five short stories from each of the BRICS countries, is directed by five female directors.

The Chinese short “The Dumpling” tells a story about an estranged mother and daughter using dumplings, one of the most recognized traditional Chinese foods.

It was shot in seven days and stars Wang Luodan, Liu Bei and Zong Ping.

Liu Yunlin, director of "The Dumpling". /Chinadaily Photo

"When I was invited to take part in the co-production, I looked for inspiration from what my friends and I have experienced," said Liu Yulin, the director when she was being interviewed on the 12th Shanghai International Film Festival.

Liu won the 41st Student Academy Awards with her short narrative film “Door God” .

Adapted from her father Liu Zhenyun’s Mao Dun Literature Prize-winning novel “One Sentence Worth Ten Thousand”, her first feature film “Someone to Talk to” was released on Nov. 11, 2016.