On December 31, 2023, the fifth hishorts! Xiamen Short Film Week concluded successfully. Five short films including "The Neighbor's Teken", "Breaking Dreams", "Sewing Love", "The Fishes" and "Brief" won the best in each category, and the short film category award in the music category was vacant.
is the largest short film festival in China with the richest content and the youngest temperament. After five years, hishorts! has created its own unique brand. Its growing reputation and influence have also witnessed the ecology and power of short film creation in this era.
The fifth hishorts! received a total of 7,691 short films, and the number of submissions hit a record high. This platform is committed to "creating an Olympics for young filmmakers", trying to break the discourse system of most film festivals around the rights of film selectors, using its own competition system that pursues fairness to highlight the competitive nature of the festival and let more aspiring filmmakers Young people who use images to speak are seen, and short films are also used to create a more diverse and rich youth cultural exchange stage.
The closing ceremony
short film is a "content gold mine"
hishorts! Xiamen Short Film Week has been held for three years since its inception in 2019. Out of the five editions, the epidemic has taken place. Although it is difficult, we insist on holding it every year, the vitality of creation is endless, and the scale of the festival is getting bigger and bigger.
In 2023, the organizer received a total of 7,691 short films from 108 countries and regions, with an international submission rate of over 56%. After the preliminary review, 207 short films were finally shortlisted for the review stage. During the 8-day short film week, there will be 40 short film screenings or groupings, or centered around different types and themes, 20 dialogues and exchanges between creators, and domestic and foreign films including the Palme d'Or, the Golden Lion, the Golden Rooster, and the Golden Horse. Winners of major film awards also came to the scene to communicate with the audience.
In addition, the venture capital market and the public open space of the art museum complement each other, the music festival stage and even the kickball competition of film directors make the entire festival highlight a more diverse and youthful and fashionable atmosphere that is different from traditional film festivals. breath.
Event poster
"I thought it was a 'content gold mine' from the beginning. The analysis and judgment of such a festival does not come from a single film festival perspective, but from the entire communication and content industry." Talking about founding this The original intention of the short film festival, hishorts! said Wang Xiaoman, founder and chief curator of Xiamen Short Film Week.
Wang Xiaoman
Wang Xiaoman, who was born in traditional media, found that a large number of students trained by relevant colleges and universities every year, "whether they are studying journalism, film and television, Chinese, or social sciences, all kinds of liberal arts students, through the amount of video content output There, but in this era, the media that require "people" have become much less. Traditional media has been greatly reduced. What new media needs is data recommendation, and many people are just doing homogeneous and repetitive work."
In this context, "the desire for personal creation and expression is still there, and a large number of such young people do not have so much money to make feature films. Short films are a channel to get people to go at a relatively low cost and with high frequency." Produce content." Wang Xiaoman believes in the significance and value of such a platform in this era. "Short films are a very flexible and diverse way of expression in the new era of communication. Its production capacity and development needs have great potential. ”
When dozens of reviewers and lifelong reviewers expressed their surprise and surprise at the quality of the short films they saw in Xiamen, Wang Xiaoman said that it was because the screening base here was large enough, the samples were large enough, and the best were selected from the best. Fierce competition allows the short films that can stand out to truly be the "one in a hundred". At the opening ceremony of
, Wang Xiaoman proposed, "We don't want to be a vanity fair, we want to be an Olympics for young filmmakers." Regarding this concept, Wang Xiaoman further explained that it is because this platform emphasizes competition, "It is mainly about players and directors, and the basis of the festival is its competition system. We hope to create fair and just competition on the same stage, as well as international exchanges and Attributes and implications of cultural exchanges."
As an original short film festival, Wang Xiaoman said that the organizing committee intentionally established a fair and objective three-review system. "People with special interests will not come. At each stage The jury will have people with different identities giving different perspectives."
In Wang Xiaoman's observation, the power of most film festivals actually lies with the film selectors, "If you are familiar with the film selectors, the film selectors will watch your films and have the opportunity to recommend your films. Traditional film festivals, including the three major ones, revolve around the selection and appointment system of chairman and artistic director. It is actually quite 'dictatorial' to a certain extent. Many times the energy of the film festival has to be spent on public relations." And "I think we are It provides wider opportunities to many people who are not in the film industry. It breaks down classes, backgrounds and ages."
Here, there is a "Growth Unit" for old friends who have come to this short film festival. "In the past 5 years , has accumulated a very large database, and found that every year, we are constantly making short films and constantly casting our directors. This year (2023) there are about more than 300 directors. In other words, the creation of the entire short film presents a very powerful vitality, it is slowly forming a creative habit among young creators and people who love images. This habit is free and easy for them, and it forms a very good circulation force. . "
A media carrier with a new generation of elite attributes
" This year (2023) we have achieved the largest collection of content in the entire short film field. This number is increasing every year, which has brought heavy workload to the work of the organizing committee. workload. "Wang Xiaoman revealed that from sorting out the contents of tens of thousands of hard drives, she found, "A large number of dialect short films have appeared this year, and we can see the very local power through regional dialects; the most unexpected thing this year is that there are more than 800 short films. The standard of animation is very high, and the richness of Chinese aesthetics exceeds our imagination. At the same time, many films from Chinese-speaking regions have been added this year, and a large number of short films created by them have appeared in our field of vision. These films allow us to see the system and context of Chinese culture elsewhere, as well as the pursuit and exploration of the identity of traditional culture by many young people overseas. "
Part of the guest lineup
More and more stars choose to bring their short films here for screening.
For example, Li Kangsheng, in addition to being a judge, brought his latest short film "Windy Days, There Are Clouds" to the audience Meet. In the impression of Xiaokang, who is dull, melancholy and meek in Tsai Ming-liang's movies, he shows a richer sense of pedigree in his short film.
Huang Lu produced and starred in the LGBT-themed short film "The Waves Like a Wave" "Duoyun" gave a breakthrough performance that is "difficult to achieve in a feature film". Yu Haoming, who served as this year's image ambassador, also brought his first science fiction work in a short film. He revealed that "not a penny was confiscated" while making the short film. , also lamented that it is a joy to support young directors to create freely;
Zhu Jingxi came to Xiamen with a self-directed and self-acted music video. She fulfilled her martial arts dream in the song, and went to the Shaolin Temple to train for half a year. Taiwanese director Cheng Weihao brought his short films from his student days, recalling the difficult years when he could not find funds, and he was filled with emotion.
Li Kangsheng, Huang Lu, Yu Haoming
Due to the large number of films, the jury of hishorts! is also a considerable group. , in the film-watching experience of dozens of judges from different fields around the world in the third review stage, there was a consensus on the quality. As the largest short film collection platform in China, at the end of the year in Xiamen, you can also see many large and small films at home and abroad. Excellent short films that have already won awards at the Small Film Festival.
On December 31st, the fierce competition in each unit came to an end. The works that stood out in the ultra-fierce competition each have something worthy of expectation and imagination. Such as the best experimental short film "The Fishes" explores how in the ever-evolving modern civilization, human beings increasingly follow the laws of the jungle such as "eating the strong" and "survival of the fittest", and explores progress and retreat in a weird and twisted way; recommended by the jury chairman "Baiju Lie", by telling the story of two old people in Shanghai, brings out the historical causes and faces the confusion of human nature...
Huang Jianxin, the chairman of the fifth jury, came to hishorts for the first time! He frankly said that he was actually curious. I want to understand why short films, short plays, and short videos have such strong appeal to today’s public.Here he thinks about the corresponding changes in the structure of art after the fragmentation of time, as well as the relationship between creators and audiences after the viewing medium changes.
Huang Jianxin
In Wang Xiaoman’s view, it is different from the short videos that are flooding on the Internet. It still has its own threshold and aesthetic standards for creation. “Short videos are still a thing with high-end image quality. You can think of it as an image magazine. I I feel that it has the attributes of a new generation of elites. The new generation of narrators have grown up. They have certain commonalities. They have good family conditions and have studied abroad. They have their own perspectives and expressions in the wave of reform and opening up in China. Desire."
Short films are richer and may not necessarily lead to movies.
Unlike feature films, short films appear to be more diverse, free and flexible in expression, but the short film unit in a traditional film festival is more like a new director's gateway to movies. A "preview" of the feature film, and here, the short film breaks away from its strong correlation with the film. At the same time, hishorts! seems to be committed to creating a communication platform for various types of art and pan-culture. Music, painting, literature, and architecture can all have interesting intersections with images.
Traditional film festival exhibitions regard short films as a way to lead to feature films. The ultimate goal of young directors shooting short films is also to lead to feature films, but hishorts! gives short films more possibilities in terms of curation and competition system design. sex. "It is something that uses images as a lever. The six units designed in the structure cover the core of the entire creative field in China.
" There are traditional content-oriented classifications such as plots, records, and animations. , there are also explorations in the direction of music videos and experimental art. It does not even shy away from commercial advertising and has set up special units for it, thus gathering more creative possibilities. At the same time, we can see the emergence of a single director identity on this platform. Many of them are "slash youths" with different hobbies and diverse perspectives, which makes their video works rich, broad and different.
event site
A distinctive unit belongs to mv, although the grand prize was ultimately vacant. At the beginning, Wang Xiaoman set up the music unit based on his own preferences, because "MVs are a very interesting thing. I used to know the MVs of many bands by heart, and many famous directors also directed music videos in the early days, but now more and more They come less and less.”
This unit is very popular in every short film festival. An interesting discovery is that many bands who shoot music videos at their own expense often have no money and do not expect to make money from this thing. "They just let their hands and feet go and shoot anything." , on the contrary, the proportion of quality will increase."
Su Shiding, who is a judge of the music unit, was very moved after seeing a large number of MV short films, "Many MVs look quite poor. At first glance, independent musicians paid for them themselves, but let People feel a driving force for creation. Musicians are a very lonely profession. In these films, I saw people who still continue to create under such circumstances and still maintain their passion and live bravely."
Houhai Fu Han, the lead singer of Big Shark, also brought his own music short film
. At the same time, while achieving a series of excellent productions, the commercial unit "became a lever and channel for us to create and produce advertisements."
Wang Xiaoman laughed and said that in the past five years, he has met a large number of "top directors" in the advertising industry. "These directors have outstanding image awareness, large operations, and strong business capabilities. In fact, It is worth exploring. At the same time, we know many people in related fields because of the commercial unit, and then we also give new directors the opportunity to shoot commercials, so that they can better obtain funds to invest in creation." The award-winning film "Smile Sweet" It records a journey of taking portraits of old people in mountainous areas. The sad background is photographed with a sweet halo under the warmth of humanistic care.
"It is not a film category in itself. Short films are more of something that broadens the boundaries." Wang Xiaoman said with a smile that he "doesn't have the baggage of a filmmaker. I am not from the film industry at all." Therefore, the top level of this festival Design “starts from the creator, not from the needs of a certain industry.Only by constantly thinking about what the real needs are can we continue to verify them. "
held the fifth hishorts!, with long-term development prospects from the beginning, and finally achieved healthy operation of profitability in 2023. "We use the thinking of product managers to create short film festivals, and there are actually more possibilities. , hoping that it will be a scalable, developable and sustainable platform. " Wang Xiaoman said.
On January 1, 2024, the new batch of freshly released award-winning short films will continue to be screened in Xiamen.
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