Approved by the State Film Bureau, the first Hainan Island International Film Festival will be held in Sanya, Hainan Province from December 9 to 16, 2018. The famous actor Jackie Chan was hired as the image ambassador of this Hainan Island International Film Festival. On October 29th, the press conference of the first Hainan Island International Film Festival was held in Boao, Hainan, which was the first time that the film festival released official information and unveiled it to the whole world. Wang Lu, Vice Governor of Hainan Provincial People’s Government; Wang Yibiao, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of People’s Daily; Zhang Pimin, Chairman of China Film Foundation; Fu Xuanguo, Executive Vice Minister of Propaganda Department of CPC Hainan Provincial Committee and Director of Provincial Film Bureau; Wu Jianchun, Vice Minister of Propaganda Department of CPC Hainan Provincial Committee; Sun Su, Chairman of Hainan Federation of Literary and Art Circles; Xie Qinglin, Vice Mayor of Sanya Municipal People’s Government; Yu Jianhong, Vice President of Beijing Film Academy; Zhang Wei, Vice President of China Film Critics Society; Wen Juan, Vice Chairman of Hong Kong Film Awards;
On April 13, 2018, General Secretary of the Supreme Leader solemnly announced at the celebration of the 30th anniversary of Hainan’s establishment of a provincial special economic zone that the CPC Central Committee decided to support the construction of a free trade pilot zone throughout Hainan and the gradual exploration and steady promotion of the construction of a free trade port with China characteristics. "Guiding Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Supporting Hainan’s Comprehensive Deepening of Reform and Opening-up" clearly proposed to support Hainan to hold an international film festival, and the Hainan Island International Film Festival came into being.
Fu Xuanguo, Secretary-General of the Organizing Committee of this film festival, Executive Deputy Minister of Propaganda Department of Hainan Provincial Party Committee and Director of Provincial Film Bureau, introduced the overall situation of the film festival to hundreds of domestic and foreign media present. When introducing the orientation and development direction of Hainan Island International Film Festival, Fu Xuanguo said that Hainan Island International Film Festival will highlight the new film festival mode of "year-round screening, island-wide screening and universal viewing", create an international, academic and popular international film festival that will never end, cultivate new formats and hot spots of film consumption in Hainan Free Trade Zone (Hong Kong), make Hainan an important destination for tourism, shopping and watching movies, and build a platform for international film exchange, cooperation and trading. We will build an international film and television shooting and production base to promote the joint development of Hainan’s film and television industry with the film festival. Holding Hainan Island International Film Festival will help to strengthen international film cultural exchanges and cooperation, promote the innovation and development of the film industry, accelerate the research and development, popularization and application of high-tech film, introduce new directors, new actors and new works, and promote the prosperity of film creation.
Hainan Island International Film Festival has unique natural environment advantages, policy advantages of regional development of Hainan Pilot Free Trade Zone and China-featured free trade port, industrial resource advantages of one of the largest and most important film markets in the world, and good expectations of the macro-development trend of China’s film industry, which has the basic conditions for building a world-class film festival. Hainan Island International Film Festival will fully learn from and absorb the valuable experience and mature operation mode of major international film festivals, and combine its own advantages and characteristics to form an independent, healthy and sustainable development format, and its future development is limitless.
In accordance with international practice, this year’s film festival has set up regular activities such as the opening and closing ceremonies, film exhibitions, forums, selection and so on. It also relies on the huge and powerful China film market to launch the server-side activities, including the promotion of new films in China film market and the national exhibition of shooting attractions. At that time, theater managers and directors from the top 1000 box office in China will focus on the promotion of nearly 100 new films to be released in the Spring Festival, so that producers can introduce and communicate with theater managers with their latest masterpieces at zero distance. At the same time, film and television bases and shooting scenes all over the country will also focus on promoting scenic spots for all production agencies and the general exhibition audience, and the organizing Committee will also give free support and promotion to shooting scenes booths in some poor areas.
In the film festival, excellent domestic and foreign films were premiered in regular cinemas. In addition, an open beach cinema was opened by making full use of the excellent beaches of Hainan Island and the whole island was toured. Classic silent films with unique style and artists’ soundtrack, classic audio films that have just been restored, excellent children’s films that are rarely released in China, and films of Hainan New Power Unit with Hainan regional pertinence were shown. These films will not only present the richness and diversity of films, but also benefit ordinary citizens with more elegant art enjoyment, so that more people can feel the unique charm of films and film festivals.
In the film festival awards session, due to the short preparation time, the international awards of the Golden Coconut Award, the main competition unit of the film festival, will be grandly launched in 2019. This year, the organizing committee will launch an honorary promotion unit for Chinese films to encourage Chinese films to produce more fine products and talents.
In the forum section, the film festival will also hold a series of professional theme forums, inviting film artists, production organizations and media from all countries and regions to gather together to discuss the common problems of global film development. During the film festival, the film festival will launch charity ambassadors to gather the global industry elites, and use the great appeal of the film industry to promote the concern of global problems faced by mankind through star poverty alleviation actions and star charity dinners, highlighting the humanistic care of Hainan Island International Film Festival and film artists.
In order to ensure the complete success of the first Hainan Island International Film Festival, Hainan Province issued the Supporting Policy on Encouraging and Supporting the Construction and Renovation of cinemas and cinemas in Hainan Province, which accelerated the pace of the construction of cinemas and cinemas in Hainan, and also promoted the construction of "1+X" cinemas in five-star hotels in the province, so that Chinese and foreign tourists can watch movies in their own hotels. Hainan is known as the "natural studio". Every year, a large number of film and television crews come to Hainan for filming. With the continuous improvement of these facilities, Hainan Island International Film Festival will eventually achieve the development goal of "year-round screening, island-wide screening, universal viewing and whole industry chain". Hainan Island International Film Festival will do its utmost to promote the perfection and development of China’s film industry chain, promote the front-end and terminal of various industries to reach various effective cooperation and exchanges at the film festival, and finally form a healthy business relationship, so as to provide effective services for the content-oriented global film industry chain.
At the press conference, Fu Xuanguo, together with Zhang Pimin, President of China Film Foundation, Yu Jianhong, Vice President of Beijing Film Academy, Zhang Wei, Vice President of China Film Critics Association, Wen Juan, Vice Chairman of Hong Kong Film Awards, and Bai Moody, Chairman of Hainan Island International Film Festival Co., Ltd., initiated the strategic cooperation between Hainan Island International Film Festival and important institutions in the industry.