The film lineup for the Tribute section of the 7th Hainan Island International Film Festival (HIIFF) is officially announced! From December 3 to December 9 this year, this section will guide the audience to revisit those significant moments in film history, pay tribute to the pioneering efforts of trailblazers, look back at the turbulence of revolutionary waves, and re-examine the connection between cinema and the contemporary era.
In this section, we first turn our gaze to the early works of several masters. Portuguese film master Manoel de Oliveira is an unavoidable peak in European art cinema. His debut narrative feature, Aniki Bóbó, completed a creative exploration "half a century ahead of its time" in 1942 with astonishing acuity. Hailed by later generations as "the harbinger of Italian Neorealism," this film's new 4K restoration, after having its world premiere in the Classics section at this year's Venice International Film Festival, will also meet Chinese audiences for the first time at HIIFF.
Another filmmaker to be recommended to the audience in this section is French documentary director Raymond Depardon. As a crucial pillar of the European documentary tradition, whether capturing the urgent realities of the war front or the hidden operations of modern institutions like hospitals and courts, his career spans over half a century, constituting one of France's most systematic documentary archives. This screening presents works from two key stages of his career, both in their latest restored versions, outlining the two ends of his creative trajectory. Reporters marks an important milestone in his transition from news photography to documentary filmmaking, serving as the origin point of his entry into reality with minimal intervention; while in The Declic Years, he uses his own voice to guide the audience through a retrospective of his twenty-year career, thereby constructing a panorama of French social transformation.
It is worth mentioning that Sylvain George, previously announced as one of the "Focus Filmmakers" of this year's HIIFF, is undoubtedly an inheritor of the French documentary tradition co-pioneered by Raymond Depardon. (Screening Lineup | Focus Filmmaker: The Stance of Viewing) From Reporters and The Declic Years to the "Night" trilogy, what changes is the ever-shifting world; what remains is how a shy yet stubborn auteur, persisting without预设 answers, leaves behind a visual archive that writes the world.
Swipe left to view more lineup
At the same time, we will also trace back to the wave-makers within the film industry. Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon reshaped the contemporary value of the crime genre and, in every sense, etched the cultural memory of 1970s America; Miloš Forman's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest crystallized the zeitgeist of the American counterculture movement. After arriving in Hollywood, this director from Prague delivered America's most profound cultural critique from an outsider's perspective. This screening will look back together at these two representative works of the New Hollywood era, both of which competed against each other at the same Academy Awards ceremony.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the ocean in Hong Kong, China, a cinematic revolution was also brewing. Tang Shu-shuen's debut feature The Arch caused a sensation with its rare female perspective and auteur stance; it was selected for the inaugural Directors' Fortnight at Cannes in 1969 and is regarded as a milestone in Hong Kong film history. Patrick Tam's Love Massacre, a representative figure of the Hong Kong New Wave, broke new ground by integrating serious expression into Hong Kong commercial cinema. Peter Yip's The System brought a documentary undertone to Hong Kong genre films. All three films have undergone 4K restoration by M+ in Hong Kong in 2025 and will be collectively presented to mainland Chinese audiences for the first time at HIIFF.
Just as Dog Day Afternoon was later remade by Derek Yee, Hong Kong crime films also exerted a profound influence on Hollywood; the waves on both sides of the ocean have always echoed and propelled each other forward. The significance of paying tribute to classics lies not merely in nostalgia, but in understanding the resonance between different eras, and in seeing that film history does not advance in a straight line, but is a complex network woven by countless astute minds. And what we call a "classic" is also a force that is continually inherited, questioned, and reignited.
More screening lineups for the 7th HIIFF will be announced soon. We look forward to embarking on a cinematic journey with filmmakers and cinephiles from home and abroad, and, through inclusivity and creativity, discovering a broader world.
