Group photo of prize winners Photo: Courtesy of Cao Xiaoxing

The curtains came down on the eighth Chinese-Korean Share Your Dream Short Film Festival, jointly held by Chinese and South Korean cultural institutes, on Friday, with five works bagging major awards after a three-month submission and selection process. The success of the festival shows that cultural and art exchanges between China and South Korea are still going strong.

The awards ceremony for the short film festival was held at the Korean Cultural Center in Beijing, almost a week ahead of the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and South Korea on Wednesday.

From the moment the submission period began, the short film festival received positive responses from young film creators in both countries. The organizing committee received more than 700 short films during the three months and 20 works entered the final round.

Five brilliant works among the 20 films stood out and bagged the awards at the 2022 festival. 

Director Yang Ming won best director for the 15-minute-long Chinese film Monsters Never Know, about the Mongolian ethnic group's belief that everything in the world has a spirit and Yang's real experiences. 

The 25-minute-long An Excessive Day, jointly produced by South Korean and Chinese filmmakers, earned best script for scriptwriters at the film festival.

According to the organizing committee of the festival, the selected works this round were more impressive than previous years in terms of script design, cinematography and post-production and cover a wide range of subjects.

The themes of the films cover the sorrow and joys of people leaving their hometowns, fancy surreal stories and  far-reaching impact  caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lei Zhilong, a well-known scriptwriter, director and a reviewing committee member, attended the awards ceremony, where he said that he could feel younger filmmakers' thoughts by appreciating their works.

"We face language and cultural differences, but movies take us across those obstacles. I believe the film industry of the two countries will be more prosperous in the future," Lei noted.

Luo Luo, a Beijing-based film critic, told the Global Times that many South Korean TV series and movies have been hailed by Chinese audiences, while some Chinese works have also gained popularity in South Korea. 

"The Beijing International Film Festival and the Shanghai International Film Festival also feature South Korean films, giving audiences a chance to see South Korean films on the big screen."

The Chinese Korean Share Your Dream Short Film Festival is a cross-border cultural public welfare project that aims to explore and cultivate young film creators, promote film and television cultural exchanges between China and South Korea, and inject vitality into the film and television culture of the two countries.

Since starting in 2014, the film festival has collected more than 4,000 works and gathered together many famous filmmakers from the two countries.