Golden Rooster honors microfilms

The 21st Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival, known as the mainland's Academy Awards, will launch a microfilm competition section for the first time in its 20-year history.

The festival will start in Shaoxing, Zhejiang province on Sept 26 and last four days.

The section will honor the 10 best microfilms, 10 best microfilms by college students, and three people who have contributed to the development of microfilms, among other awards.

Applicants should mail their microfilms of between 2 and 30 minutes to the organizing committee before Aug 30.

An awards ceremony will be held on Sept 27 in Shaoxing.

People Mountain People Sea, a film that won the Silver Lion at 2011's Venice International Film Festival, will hit mainland theaters on Aug 3.

The film follows the journey of Lao Tie, in rural China, as he tries to find the killer of his younger brother. The journey turns out to be more important than the result and unfolds a gloomy picture of contemporary China's grassroots life.

Director Cai Shangjun works with veteran actor Chen Jianbin, who often plays ancient emperors. Chen this time breaks his stereotype to play the poor farmer protagonist.

Violin prodigy, age 12, releases album

Hong Kong's Sophia Chan, 12, has released her first album, titled The Violin Angel, on the Poloarts label. It records her performance at Festival de Musica de Santa Catarina, with the festival orchestra under the baton of Alex Klein in Brazil, in January 2011.

The record features Edouard Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole, Chinese composer He Fang's violin concerto Jasmine Flower and other pieces.

Chan started to play the violin at 4 and quickly displayed her tremendous talent on many TV shows. Now she studies with the world's top violinist, Shmuel Ashkenasi, and Michael Ma, professor of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

Dalian to host a digital fair

The first China-Japan-Korea Digital Culture Fair, Asia's largest digital culture industries event, will be held in Dalian, Liaoning province, from Sept 27-29.

By bringing together mainstream organizations from the three countries, the fair aims to build a trading platform of digital culture, and further integrate marketing of Asia's digital culture industries.

The fair, co-organized by China Digital Culture Group and the Zhongshan district government of Dalian, has invited more than 100 enterprises and related organizations from China, Japan and South Korea.

Besides awards for excellent productions and providing a forum for the digital culture industry, a series of themed events will allow participants to experience digital science.

(China Daily 08/02/2012 page20)