In the warm winter nights of Sanya, the sea breeze, the sound of the tides, and the flickering lights on the screen intertwine into a unique rhythm. As an important program of the 3rd Hainan Island International Film Festival (HIIFF), the HIIFF Open-Air Screenings have brought multiple immersive outdoor viewing experiences to Sanya residents and tourists over several consecutive days. Films light up by the sea, in the mountains, and in the city center.
Continuing the brand IP "HIIFF Open-Air Screenings", which garnered widespread attention upon its debut last year, this year's HIIFF Open-Air Screenings steps into public living spaces with a more open attitude, placing films back into natural landscapes. This allows the audience to embark on a viewing journey that approaches the essence of cinema amidst real wind, real light, and real tides.
Screening at multiple locations turns all of Sanya into a natural screening room
This year's HIIFF Open-Air Screenings has set up screening points at Maling Community Tianya Town, Luhuitou Scenic Area, and Summer Station Shopping Center for the general public, cinephiles, and tourists. Representing holiday travel, mountain and sea landscapes, and leisure living spaces, they collectively constitute Sanya's most typical spatial attributes. They also reflect the diverse structure of the outdoor scenes at this year's HIIFF Open-Air Screenings, allowing the viewing experience to continuously transform in flux.
At Maling Community Tianya Town, residents and tourists sit around, children chase each other by the screen, and the community's lights reflect off the screen's glow, presenting a warmth close to daily life. As the sky above the coast slowly sinks from the sunset glow into deep blue, the screen lights up, and the audience enters the world of cinema together.
Maling Community Tianya Town
The screening at Luhuitou Scenic Area unfolds between the mountains and the sea. Looking up, one can see the clouds slowly drifting across the night sky; in the distance, the sea surface reflects the skylight. When the screen lights up against the mountain backdrop, nature becomes the vastest background. Leaning back in lounge chairs, facing the sea breeze and the city lights, the audience immerses itself in the immense sense of envelopment co-created by the film and nature.
Luhuitou Scenic Area
The venue at Summer Station Shopping Center presents another side with more urban vitality. Illuminated by modern architecture and lights, young crowds gather here at night, forming a market atmosphere with a stronger sense of festivity.
Summer Station Shopping Center
A gathering of outstanding films brings the festival and daily life together
This year's HIIFF Open-Air Screenings has carefully selected a series of high-quality domestic and international films, featuring both widely acclaimed works and films with a light pace suitable for an outdoor atmosphere, including Hi, Mom, Small Monsters of Langlang Mountain, That Summer in Paris, and Good Stuff appearing on the outdoor screen.
The open-air screenings have not only attracted a large number of residents but also drawn many cinephiles and tourists who made special trips to experience them. The stories on the screen, along with the live sound of waves, the flow of the wind, tourists' laughter, and children's playful chatter, collectively become part of the viewing experience, forming a bright landscape in Sanya's winter nighttime cultural life. Some sit on the beach, some lie on chairs, and some, just passing by, are drawn by the screen to stop and become part of the scenery.
Multiple experiences break the boundary between online and offline
This year's HIIFF Open-Air Screenings aims to bridge online social experiences with offline physical viewing, forging a closer bond between the audience and cinema, as well as among audience members themselves, in a new context. Teaming up with our partners Weibo and Bilibili respectively, we present two special screening sessions at the HIIFF Open-Air Screenings, reaching the world of cinema together with hundreds of attending viewers.
The "bilibili Easter Egg Special Screening", co-hosted by HIIFF Open-Air Screenings and Bilibili, was held on December 5. We screened Small Monsters of Langlang Mountain at the HIIFF Open-Air Screenings venue in Sanya Tianya Town, and invited three Bilibili creators—Xiaopianpian Shuo Dapian, Miying Zhixia Filmlast, and Xuanmiao Elias—as "class representatives". They were joined by Waji, the character design and original art designer of Small Monsters of Langlang Mountain, for a seaside roundtable discussion, talking about the behind-the-scenes stories of character design, animation film production, and in-depth interpretations of derivative creations.
bilibili Easter Egg Special Screening
At the "Weibo Film Special Screening" co-hosted by HIIFF Open-Air Screenings and Weibo Film, we invited Weibo users to a cinematic rendezvous at the Ends of the Earth. Through a voting campaign launched on Weibo beforehand, users were able to decide the film to be screened themselves. After 72 hours of wishing, The Determination to Leave topped the list with 1,017 votes. On the evening of December 6, Weibo users gathered at Tianya Town, seeking that "determination to leave" together amidst the sea breeze at the Ends of the Earth.
Weibo Film Special Screening
As the final screening slowly concluded in the sea breeze, the HIIFF Open-Air Screenings of the 3rd HIIFF also came to a successful close. When cinema encounters more open spaces and more diverse crowds, the wonderful atmosphere of the festival spreads further and lasts longer. The light and shadow never end; we look forward to seeing you again next year.
Although the 3rd Hainan Island International Film Festival has concluded, the film screenings continue. Please click below to enter the mini-program to purchase tickets. Amidst the coconut breeze and sea charm, light and shadow will always accompany you.
