From August 21 to 23, 2026, the Hainan Island International Film Festival (HIIFF) and the China Film Archive co-hosted a special screening and post-screening exchange event. Seven films from the 7th HIIFF met with cinephiles in Beijing. Ranging from award-winning masterpieces of the Golden Coconut Awards to restored films in Tribute and Pearls of Cinema, this special screening brought Beijing cinephiles a cinematic experience spanning contemporary creation, classic retrospectives, and avant-garde exploration through diverse genres and rich visual styles.
The films in this special screening continued HIIFF's focus on the forefront of global cinematic creation and classic cinema, collectively forming a cross-section of the festival's curatorial philosophy. Over the past year, special screening events have brought HIIFF films to cities such as Beijing and Suzhou. Geographical boundaries cannot hinder the enthusiasm for cinema; HIIFF will continue to implement the "year-round screening" concept in the future, so that outstanding creations can be seen by more audiences. This year's special screening further presented the behind-the-scenes thinking of "how to curate a film festival" to the audience. Why choose this film and not that one? How do different sections form a dialogue? How does a curator use a group of films to articulate a cinematic philosophy? — These inquiries extend the act of viewing into an understanding of the festival itself, allowing audiences not only to watch on the screen but also to step into the process of a film from being discovered to being selected.
On August 21, following the screening of Black Rabbit, White Rabbit, Zhu Yuying, Head of Competition at HIIFF, hosted the first salon. Together with Li Xun, Researcher at the China Film Art Research Center and Artistic Advisor to HIIFF, and Sha Dan, Programmer at the China Film Archive, they explored the question: "What kind of new films do we expect to see at a film festival?"
For cinephiles, a film festival means opportunities to encounter unknown works time and time again. For a film festival, discovering new auteurs and new works from the continuously emerging global cinema is always a vital task. From "what makes a new film visible to a festival" to "how global creative trends are perceived," the guests shared a wealth of real experiences from the frontlines of selection and curation. This included the moments of "fishing out" surprises from thousands of submitted works, as well as the balancing process of judging whether a film with a highly distinctive auteur style is suitable for the festival. During the conversation, Li Xun stated: "I advocate that domestic film festivals should be more diverse. It would be best to bring films that are relatively new and cutting-edge globally each year, those with innovations in formal structure and genre, to domestic audiences."
On August 22, Zhu Yuying hosted the post-screening event for Night Shift, with Li Xun, Sha Dan, and producer Shan Zuolong sitting together for a discussion. Starting from their respective roles as scholars, curators, and producers, the guests pieced together a comprehensive picture of festival film selection. The salon started from the Pearls of Cinema section, to which the film Night Shift belongs, and discussed the curatorial models of film festivals and the detailed trade-offs in the selection process. Every film section is not categorized arbitrarily, but carries different curatorial intentions.
Sha Dan reflected on the artistic considerations of festival selection through the "Frontiers" section of the Beijing International Film Festival: "'Frontiers' structures such a question in terms of form or aesthetics: film is not just the kind of film you see; there are many various ways of shooting. The structure of a film might be strange, its expression might be avant-garde, and its image quality might be highly blurred. And such films are precisely the very important ones within a film festival."
Shan Zuolong offered another perspective from a producer's point of view: "A producer has no choice; the only choice is to accompany the director to finish the film. You might have to accompany it all the way through rejections, until finally a film festival wants it. A good festival's competition slate must offer filmmakers choices."
Li Xun, on the other hand, emphasized the importance of communicating with world cinema: "To use a metaphor, film is a language. So, which linguistic form or linguistic modality is currently popular internationally is very important. Therefore, you must learn to communicate with people in English or French, and to tell our Chinese stories out to the world."
On-site Material Distribution
Beyond the screen, the brochures and posters prepared on site became physical extensions of the viewing memory. Before each screening, audience members could present their ticket stubs to collect posters and stamp the back page of their brochures, which could then be redeemed according to the rules for tickets to the 8th HIIFF. The posters, featuring a double-sided design that extracted detailed elements from the films and incorporated media reviews, were highly favored by cinephiles. During the three days of screenings, cinephiles shuttled between sessions with their brochures in hand, showing great enthusiasm for stamp collecting. These small stamp booklets not only recorded their three-day viewing trajectory but also carried cinephiles' anticipation for the 8th HIIFF at the end of the year. Many cinephiles have already filled their stamp activities; let us look forward to meeting again in Sanya at the end of the year.
Cinephiles Who Collected All Stamps
Seven films of diverse genres formed the cinematic journey of the Beijing special screening. Meanwhile, the two salons acted as a key, helping audiences unlock the "behind-the-scenes door" of the film festival. Although the Beijing station has concluded, HIIFF's screenings remain on the journey—the next city, the next screen, and the next work waiting to be discovered all continue onward. The 8th Hainan Island International Film Festival will be held as scheduled in December 2026, when more films and filmmakers will gather on the island. From north to south, from late autumn to the end of the year, cinema is always seeking new eyes. We cordially invite all cinephiles to return to the island at the end of the year to appreciate diverse masterpieces, and to let those unfinished cinematic stories continue to unfold on the new journey.
The call for entries for the Golden Coconut Awards and the call for applications for the Young Coconut Project Venture Training Camp at the 8th Hainan Island International Film Festival (HIIFF) are currently underway. Filmmakers are welcome to register on the official website (https://www.hiiff.net/). The deadline for entries for the Golden Coconut Awards is September 24, 2026, and the deadline for applications for the Young Coconut Project Venture Training Camp is September 10, 2026. For specific details, please refer to the regulations on the official website.
