Director Huang Jianxin, head of the jury for the Golden Goblet Awards at the SIFF this year, speaks at the Golden Goblet Masterclass on June 16 in Shanghai. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
The 24th Shanghai International Film Festival celebrated its opening on June 11 with the screening of the movie 1921.
Named after the year the Communist Party of China was founded, the film presented the historical event in an international context and portrayed the pioneering Chinese communists in the prime of their youth.
More than 400 movies — of which 73 are making their world premiere — are being shown at the SIFF which runs until June 20. With this being the year that marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, many of the films were specially made to commemorate the occasion.
At the opening session of the SIFForum, a dialogue platform of the SIFF, vice chairman of the China Film Group Fu Ruoqing said that his company has created about 10 major film and TV productions bearing important themes about China. These productions include Impasse, a revolutionary thriller by Zhang Yimou, and In Wuhan, a documentary series about China’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shanghai Film Co has contributed to the making of such productions too with 1921 and Wang Dao, a biographical film about Chen Wangdao, the scholar who first translated The Communist Manifesto into Chinese. The former film is the second creation by veteran director Huang Jianxin that is themed on the founding of the CPC. His first was a trilogy on the Chinese revolution (The Founding of a Republic, The Founding of a Party, and The Founding of an Army) that was created 10 years ago.
A poster of film titled 1921. The film will be released nationwide on July 1. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
“This is a movie about the young people of 1921, made for the audience, who are young in 2021. We can make these important historical figures relevant, when we picture them as young people full of emotions, so that today’s audiences can resonate with them,” Huang, who is also the head of the international jury in the main competition of the Golden Goblet Awards of the SIFF this year, described the film, which is centered on the lives and aspirations of the 13 CPC delegates who announced the founding of the CPC.
“Most of them were young people that few had heard of. Their passion and aspiration, dedication and strong faith have all been the natural product of youth,” he added.
“Three of the youngest delegates went to the Great World Entertainment Park to see the distorting mirrors as soon as they arrived in Shanghai. They were just ordinary young folks, full of curiosity and impulse, who only decided to stand out because the country was in troubled waters.”
Huang said that new discoveries by historians proved pivotal in the making of this film. For example, it was previously recorded that two representatives of Communists International participated in the first national congress of the CPC in Shanghai, but the new findings showed that there was disagreement between these two foreigners and the Chinese Communists as the latter did not agree with the idea of establishing CPC as a new branch of the international organization.
Rather, they wanted to establish an independent party that would serve the people of China.
The movie also shines a light on the newly discovered fact that the Japanese were closely monitoring Communist activities. Researchers had only in recent times discovered a telegram from the historical files of the Tokyo police department which shows the Japanese authorities knew about the planned gathering.
“The telegram contained the address and date, and even information about most of the delegates’ home provinces,” said Zheng Dasheng, the co-director of 1921, who suggested that Japan did not want to see the emergence of a Communist Party in China as it might interfere with its control of Manchuria.
“Artists pick up where historians cease to work,” he added, noting that while it is important to ensure that important historical facts are accurately portrayed in the movie, the use of artistic imagination to tell a good story is just as important.
Inspired by these historical findings, script writer Yu Xi was able to spice up the story of 1921 and create a suspenseful side story involving efforts by outsiders to meddle with the founding and congress of the CPC in Shanghai.
Wang Renjun, the actor for the role of Mao Zedong in the movie 1921, shares his story portraying the former national leader during his youthful age. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
In China, the creation of films about important social subjects, revolutionary history and heroic achievements, often known as “theme creative projects”, have long been supported by the State and local administrations.
In the past few years, the category known as “themed movie and TV creations” has become increasingly successful, with many of these productions generating high box office takings and earning critical acclaim.
Liang Jing, the producer of a series of highly popular themed movies such as The Eight Hundred; My People, My Country; and The Sacrifice, said at the SIFForum that themed movies belong to mainstream cinema as they feature heroes or heroic events and represent the mainstream value.
At the China Movie and TV Night on June 12, an event hosted by the China Media Group, Gao Xixi, director of Decisive Victory, a new TV series on the three most important battles during the civil war between the Kuomintang regime and the CPC army, spoke with China Daily about why he believes it was necessary to make the new TV series even though there was already a successful movie trilogy about the events.
“Latest technology enables filmmakers to create new visual presentation, and more importantly, we get to tell the stories in a new perspective that today’s audiences can identify with,” he said.
“We try to pull the historical figures a little further down the altar, and show the ordinary human aspects of much venerated national leaders such as Zhou Enlai.”
A recent example of such a production is The Age of Awakening, a 43-episode TV drama series about the early 1900s when progressive intellectuals embraced the newly introduced Communism ideas.
The TV series won three Magnolia Awards for Best Director, Best Original Script and Best Leading Male Actor at the 27th Shanghai TV Festival on June 10.
