Stars come out for film festival

Staff workers show the Tiantan Awards for the third Beijing International Film Festival on Tuesday. Jiang Dong / China Daily

Event to feature foreign movies, celebrities as well as local talent

The Beijing International Film Festival, now on its third edition, will have a competition section this year.

The festival, which opened on Tuesday night in the capital's Tiantan Park, will give out 10 Tiantan Awards, including prizes for the best film, director, actor and actress.

Among the 15 nominated films are two local productions: Feng Xiaogang's disaster epic Back to 1942, and Wang Jing's emotional drama Feng Shui.

Mike Newell's Great Expectations and Carlos Sorin's Gone Fishing have also been shortlisted for the awards.

Renowned Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov leads the jury, which also includes Ivor Benjamin, chair of the Directors Guild of Great Britain; Cameron Bailey, the artistic director of the Toronto Film Festival; and veteran Chinese directors Gu Changwei and Zhang Yibai.

The festival is intended as a film panorama for local cinephiles, as only 34 foreign films a year are allowed to be released theatrically in China.

During the festival, which runs until April 23, some 260 films made at home and abroad will be screened in 28 cinemas in Beijing.

According to Zhao Zhiyong, deputy secretary-general of the festival, 90 percent of the foreign movies screened are relatively new productions made in 2011 and 2012.