A cyclist passes a statue of the symbol of Berlin International Film Festival in Berlin, capital of Germany, on Feb. 19, 2020. The 70th Berlin International Film Festival, also known as the Berlinale, is scheduled to kick off on Feb. 20 and last until March 1. (Xinhua/Shan Yuqi)

 

Jia Zhangke Photo: Courtesy of Wishart

The 70th Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) will be held from Thursday to March 1. Several Chinese films will screen both in and out of competition during the film festival, including Days, Swimming Out till the Sea Turns Blue, The Calming and Suk Suk.

Chinese director Jia Zhangke is scheduled to attend the opening ceremony on Thursday and later on Monday sit down for a talk with Chinese post-1980 director Huo Meng. Jia's representative work Xiao Wu, a 1997 Silver Bear-winning film, will be screened alongside Huo's Crossing the Border - Zhaoguan on the same day. 

"Jia is the most influential Chinese mainland art film director in Europe and even the world. He is good at telling realistic stories of ordinary people's lives against certain social backgrounds but at the same time incorporating some figurative and imaginative plots," Sha Dan, a curator at the China Film Archive and a film critic, told the Global Times.

Sha noted that Jia's documentary Swimming Out till the Sea Turns Blue, which is screening in the Berlinale Special section, proves the director's capabilities in documentary filming, while Jia's been most famous for his splendid feature films, such as Ash Is Purest White and Mountains May Depart.

In the documentary, three well-known writers Jia Pingwa, Yu Hua and Liang Hong narrate their life stories in combination with the literature works they have written that reflect the social changes taken place in China over the past decades.

The Berlinale has been a great venue for Chinese filmmakers in the past, with many of their films winning awards, such as Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet, Zhang Yimou's Red Sorghum, Diao Yinan's Black Coal,Thin Ice and 2019 Silver Bear-winning film So Long, My Son. 

However, whether or not Days will win any awards is not clear, according to Sha. 

Because there are far fewer jury members than the Oscars so it is difficult to predict the results of the competition in Berlinale even when the films have receive rave reviews after screening at the festival.

Shi Wenxue, a film critic, told the Global Times that the Berlinale tends to favor films that reveal individual and political changes from a historic perspective, such as films about the LGBT community. However, due to the growing ordinariness of LGBT topics, the film festival's novel and free spirit has dimmed somewhat.