Pingyao is to host film festival in October

Pingyao, a 2,700-year-old town in Shanxi province, will hold the Pingyao Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon International Film Festival from Oct 19 to 26.

The event is initiated by Chinese director Jia Zhangke. Italian movie producer and critic Marco Muller, who is the festival's art director, announced the official name of the event during a news conference on Thursday in Beijing.

The event is organized by newly founded Pingyao International Film Festival Co under the guidance of Shanxi and Pingyao's relevant government departments.

The festival will include six sections, including two special parts named "Crouching Tiger" and "Hidden Dragon" respectively to bring attention to new directors and genre films.

An international consultant team made of professional filmmakers and critics has been assembled to select more than 40 films from different countries for guests and audience participating in the festival.

The festival, which will mainly show non-Western movies, intends to strengthen ties and cooperation between Chinese movie industry partakers with their counterparts in non-Western countries, especially developing countries.

Pingyao was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1997 and is one of the most popular tourist attractions in China. In 2016, it received more than 10 million tourists.

The film festival project has involved constructing a cultural industrial park, which will house movie exhibition areas, art communities and a production studio, at the former site of the Pingyao diesel engine factory in the ancient town.

The festival will boost the local movie industry and help Pingyao become an industrial cluster for culture in North China, commented Jia earlier.

As an experienced film producer, Muller also offered valuable suggestions on staging the event. In his opinion, the film festival should highlight Pingyao's unique cultural characteristics.

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