Photo: Courtesy of organizers

With a strong start for Chinese film in 2025, led by the animated blockbuster Ne Zha 2, the Beijing International Film Festival will kick off on April 18 to mark the 130th anniversary of the birth of world cinema and the 120th anniversary of the birth of Chinese cinema. 

The festival's section for AI-generated content (AIGC) films will be improved upon following its debut in 2024 amid the AI tech boom, while global works reflecting on war and advocating for peace will be screened during the historic occasion of the 80th anniversary of victory in the World Anti-Fascist War, it was announced at a press conference on Thursday.

A total of 1,794 films from 103 countries and regions applied for the competition this year, with 15 selected to contend for the Tiantan Award, the main competition unit. There are a total of 1,608 foreign entries, accounting for nearly 90 percent of the total. The number of countries and regions that signed up has set a new record, according to the organizers.

This film festival will retain and upgrade the AIGC film section. The jury for this section will be chaired by renowned Chinese director Guan Hu, with jury members including Rob Minkoff, the director of The Lion King (1994), and actress Tan Zhuo, among others. The AI unit, which was introduced in 2024, will undergo an iterative upgrade, continuing to host a series of themed discussions, roundtables and industry salons to explore topics such as how technology can serve storytelling.

Members of 14th Tiantan Award jury of the 2025 BJIFF such as British director David Yates and Swiss director and actor Vincent Perez, led by Chinese director Jiang Wen as jury president, were also announced at the press conference.

In 2024, the organizing committee of the film festival received a total of 430 AIGC submissions from across the globe, including entries from the US, the UK, Austria, Japan and Malaysia. These submissions varied in duration, spanning from one to 18 minutes, the Guangming Daily reported.

Film researchers such as veteran film critic Shi Wenxue and Zhang Peng, an associate professor at Nanjing Normal University, are looking forward to the AIGC film section as it is not only a collision of technology and art, but also an exploration of the boundaries of future film creation.

"The continuation of the AIGC film unit is historically significant, especially in light of the goal to establish a strong film nation by 2035," Shi told the Global Times. Recently, the China Film Administration issued a notice promoting the orderly development of vir-tual reality films and highlighting the current state and trends of technological innovation in film, Shi noted.

Zhang said that he is also working on AI-generated films and expects to see more brilliant works spring up in the section. 

"With the support of AIGC tech, the barriers to film creation are lowered, allowing more people to participate in film production. This will greatly enrich the diversity and innovation of film content," said Zhang.

In addition to the high-tech section, Shi noted that the opening of the film festival coincides with significant historical moments in both global and Chinese cinema, prompting him to place greater emphasis on commemorative works within the film history.

As the organization committee of the event announced, as this year is the 120th anniversary of the birth of Chinese cinema, a special exhibition on Chinese film will systematically outline the development of the national film industry. This year, one of Beijing's earliest film screening venues, Daguanlou, also joined the lineup of cinemas screening works for the festival. The Daguanlou Cinema will showcase 10 Peking Opera films, inviting audiences to return to the birthplace of Chinese cinema.

Meanwhile, amid the 130th anniversary of the birth of cinema, a special program titled "130 Years of Self-Portrait" will be launched at the event, based on the concept of "films documenting their own history." This program will showcase several excellent films that narrate the history of cinema, including The Purple Rose of Cairo and Shirin.