Hainan Jury Touts Festival as a Launchpad for Next Year’s Breakthrough Films

Key Highlights

• Related Stories Limited Series TV Writers on How to Tell a True Crime Story When the World Thinks They Know All the Details Rather than presenting a summary of the current year’s films, Müller argued that the HIIFF could be a platform that introduces groundbreaking films for the year ahead.
• Popular on Variety “The timing is particularly important,” Müller stated, noting the festival’s placement, sandwiched between AFM in November, and the Berlin Film Festival in February.
• “The Hainan Film Festival’s schedule happens to provide an opportunity to let young, media and film-obsessed audiences discover the newest films.
• That is, films that are coming out immediately next year.” The sense of a festival still finding its footing between domestic focus and an international outlook was also evident in the responses of other jury members to questions ranging from China’s local box office to Asian-American representation in Hollywood.
• When asked about the latter, documentary juror and director Renee Tajima-Peña referenced the #OscarsSoWhite campaign and the push for greater AAPI representation in AMPAS.