Birdman to land at Beijing gathering

Ralph Fiennes, left, and Tony Revolori in The Grand Budapest Hotel. [Photo/Associated Press]

"We pitched the popular blockbusters and most talked-about productions months before the American awards season and made the selection based on research of box-office performances and the responses of professional critics," says China Film Archive director Sun Xianghui.

Five movies with "high artistic value" but "very little chance to make it in the mainstream market" will also be screened during the seven-day event, according to Sun Xianghui.

They include the romance thriller Gone Girl, the comedy-drama Inside Llewyn Davis directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, and Russian movie Leviathan.

Most of the movies have obtained high scores on the popular Chinese movie review websites, such as Birdman with 8 points of 10 and The Grand Budapest Hotel, with 8.7 on douban.com.

The movies are currently available on some major video-streaming sites, but experts insist that the best way to see the films is on the big screen.

"Many professional critics and insiders would watch most movies on videotapes decades ago. In recent years they started watching them on high-quality disks. As for the self-described hardcore Hollywood movie fans, most of them watch movies online," says Zuo Heng, deputy director of cinema studies at the China Film Archives.

"Film is a big-screen production with mixed characteristics, such as magnificent scenes, special effects and sound effects. A real movie culture must have viewers in cinemas. The rapidly expanding market will speed up the spread of this culture," he says.

This year, a film critic-guided system will be introduced for the first time since the festival was launched in 2011.

Because 2015 marks 120 years since the world's first movie and the 110th year of the first Chinese movie, the festival also plans to screen some classical works from film masters who were born 100 years ago.

Films from US actor-director Orson Welles and Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman, both born in 1915, will be screened at the festival.