{"id":171299,"date":"2014-04-10T20:59:18","date_gmt":"2014-04-11T03:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=171299"},"modified":"2014-04-18T14:00:33","modified_gmt":"2014-04-18T21:00:33","slug":"chinese-film-awards-refuses-name-best-picture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2014\/04\/chinese-film-awards-refuses-name-best-picture\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Film Jury Refuses To Award Best Picture"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was no Best Picture winner at this year’s China Film Directors’ Guild Awards<\/a><\/strong>, a move “some insiders” interpret as a political statement against the blocking of films like Jia Zhangke’s A Touch of Sin<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0Jury chairman and film director\u00a0Feng Xiaogang, an open critic of film censorship<\/a>,\u00a0said that “right now, we don\u2019t need to pat ourselves on the back, we need to set a higher standard.”\u00a0From Clifford Coonan at The Hollywood Reporter:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole jury agreed to leave the award vacant, and this is a unique action from the Directors\u2019 Guild,\u201d said the celebrated director of\u00a0Aftershock<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Back to 1942<\/em>, who is often referred to as “China\u2019s Spielberg.”<\/p>\n

A notable absence from the films in competition was\u00a0Jia\u00a0Zhangke’s\u00a0A Touch of Sin<\/em>, which had been nominated but was withdrawn at the last minute as it failed to pass censorship in time.<\/p>\n

While there were no explicit references during the ceremony, the decision not to award the best director and best film honors is being interpreted by some insiders as a form of protest against the government’s decision not allow the movie to screen in general release in China. Jia’s\u00a0critically celebrated film touches on many politically sensitive themes including corruption, economic inequality, prostitution and growing violence in China. It won the best screenplay award at the Cannes Film Festival last May.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Sina.com before the event, guild president\u00a0Li Shaohong\u00a0explained that since\u00a0A Touch of Sin<\/em>\u00a0has neither reached theaters nor been officially released on DVD, it was disallowed from competing for the awards. [Source<\/a><\/strong>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At The New York Times, however, Didi Kirsten Tatlow reports that jury members she interviewed indicated that the decision was based on the quality of the contending films alone<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

The fact that Mr. Jia\u2019s film was not cleared by the government for release in theaters or in DVD form in China in 2013 disqualified it from consideration for an award. But several directors contacted about the film said the decision not to award the two main prizes was not a protest against its nonrelease.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t consider that,\u201d said the director Wang Xiaoshuai, a jury member.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year\u2019s selection wasn\u2019t aimed at censorship, just at the Chinese film environment,\u201d Mr. Wang said. \u201cWe were just purely talking about films, about returning to origins, everything else was thrown out.\u201d<\/p>\n

[…] Ms. Li, the guild chairwoman, also said there was no connection between the decision and the fact that Mr. Jia\u2019s film has not been allowed to be shown in China. But, she said by telephone, \u201cIt is a great pity that the film could not get permission to be shown. If a film doesn\u2019t get approval, if it didn\u2019t show in 2013, then there\u2019s nothing anyone can do about it.\u201d [Source<\/a><\/strong>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read more about Jia Zhangke and A Touch of Sin<\/em><\/a> via CDT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was no Best Picture winner at this year’s China Film Directors’ Guild Awards, a move “some insiders” interpret as a political statement against the blocking of films like Jia Zhangke’s A Touch of Sin.\u00a0Jury chairman and film director\u00a0Feng Xiaogang, an open critic of film censorship,\u00a0said that “right now, we don\u2019t need to pat ourselves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1022,"featured_media":171304,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[20,14744,14745,14746],"tags":[4758,53,3465,4338,15130,7734,1550],"class_list":["post-171299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-level-2-article","category-level-3-article","category-level-4-article","tag-awards","tag-censorship","tag-feng-xiaogang","tag-film-censorship","tag-foreign-films","tag-jia-zhangke","tag-movies","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\nChinese Film Jury Refuses To Award Best Picture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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