HONG KONG — The Shanghai International Film Festival, which runs until June 22, is the most prominent of its kind in mainland China. This year, nearly 900 films are showing at 35 cinemas across Shanghai, the country’s buzzing commercial center.
In something of a rarity in the world of cinema, this year’s edition will have two women at its helm: its director and the head of its jury.
The jury president is the Chinese actress Gong Li, who returned to China recently after attending the Cannes Film Festival’s world premiere of “Coming Home,” her latest collaboration with the director Zhang Yimou. While she has a long history of working with overseas festivals — she was on the Cannes jury as early as 1997 — her prominent role in Shanghai marks a homecoming of sorts.
“I feel incredibly honored to be able to serve as president of the jury for the Golden Goblet award and work alongside top filmmakers from around the world to discover outstanding new works that have deep human resonance,” Ms. Gong said in a statement.
Fu Wenxia, the festival’s managing director, said in a written response that women were hired into high-level roles because of their backgrounds, and not because of any particular effort to place them there.
“The key is a festival director’s connection with industry insiders and the ability to run a film festival,” she said in Chinese. “Gong Li is one of China’s most internationally influential people in the film industry. Her role as the head of the judging panel is well-deserved.”
The 2014 festival received a record number of submissions: 1,808 for exhibition and 1,099 for various competitions, including the main Golden Goblet prize. This year’s edition is notable not just for the women at its helm but also for its program, which includes a range of both little-known Asian films and Hollywood offerings. The SIFF’s challenge is to appeal to foreign studios and global audiences, while abiding by the constraints of the Communist Party-led government.
It opened on Saturday with a restored color version of the classic “Two Stage Sisters,” a 1964 film about female Chinese opera singers before the Communist Revolution, during an era when most stage roles went to men.
The closing film will be a polar opposite — “Transformers: Age of Extinction,” a macho, futuristic, American blockbuster. The fourth installment of the Michael Bay series is among an increasing number of U.S.-Chinese co-productions that are partially shot in China. Shanghai is highlighting “Transformers” at a time when American studios are eyeing China’s vast consumer base — the nation now makes up the world’s second-largest movie market after the United States — and Chinese companies are eagerly seeking Hollywood expertise and clout.
Expected on the red carpet on opening night are international stars like Nicole Kidman, Hugh Grant and Hayden Christensen, who co-stars in “Outcast,” another U.S.-Chinese co-production showing at the festival. Asian celebrities expected at the opening include Jackie Chan, John Woo, the Chinese actress Li Bingbing and the Korean heartthrob Rain.
In choosing the winners, Ms. Gong is joined by two women directors, Sally Potter of Britain (“Orlando”) and Lone Scherfig from Denmark (“An Education,” “One Day”). Also on the jury are three Asian directors — Im Sang-soo of South Korea, Liu Jie of China and Shunji Iwai of Japan — as well as Peyman Moadi, the actor who starred in “A Separation,” the first Iranian film to win an Oscar.
Of the 15 finalists, the biggest Hollywood entries include John Carney’s rom-com “Begin Again,” starring Keira Knightley, and Brad Anderson’s’ “Eliza Graves,” an adaptation of an Edgar Allan Poe story, starring Kate Beckinsale. Michael and Peter Spierig, the twin brothers and directing duo behind horrors like “Daybreakers” and “Undead,” will present “Predestination,” with Ethan Hawke in the leading role.
All things Korean are currently hot in Asia, so there should be special attention paid to “The Target,” a remake of the French action thriller “Point Blank” (À bout portant) by Yoon Hong-seung, a director better known as Chang.
Zhang Meng of China, who drew critical attention with “The Piano in a Factory,” will show “The Uncle Victory.” Masayuki Suo, the Japanese director behind the charming “Shall We Dance?,” is presenting “Maiko wa Lady,” a coming-of-age drama. One of the festival’s world premieres will be “The Last Executioner” by Tom Waller, an Irish-Thai filmmaker from Bangkok.
Also in contention for the Golden Goblet are “Ant Story,” by the Bangladeshi director Mostofa Sarwar Farooki; and “Snow,” by the Iranian director Mehdi Rahmani.
There are also a good number of finalists mining the rich cinematic territory of World War II.
Aaron Wilson’s “Canopy” is about a chance meeting between an Australian Air Force pilot soldier and a Chinese freedom fighter in the jungles of Singapore. “The Woods Are Still Green” is an antiwar film by the Slovenian director Marko Nabersnik. Pantelis Voulgaris, a Greek filmmaker, offers “Little England” (Mikra Anglia), a romance about two sisters in love with the same man. The veteran German director Volker Schlöndorff — who has been using World War II as a backdrop since “The Tin Drum” in 1979 — returns with “Diplomatie,” set in occupied Paris.
Originally, 11 films were announced for the short list; the last four were added only about a week before the opening. Of these late additions, the most striking choice was “The Sacred Arrow,” a story of two traditional archers by the Tibetan novelist and filmmaker Pema Tseden.
Tibet — with its tangle of religious and ethnic minority issues — is a wrought subject in China, where discussions about the independence movement and the Dalai Lama are closely censored. While Mr. Tseden’s work does not address politics specifically, he does examine the uneasy relationship between traditional Tibetan life and China’s modernization. SIFF has recognized Mr. Tseden before — he was given the New Talent Award in 2006, as well as the Golden Goblet Jury Grand Prix in 2009.
China is welcoming co-productions, but gingerly. It favors uncontentious, crowd-pleasing entertainment — and even then, the government expects to have a say in content. American directors are asked to avoid scenes that are unflattering to China.
The Shanghai festival has to consider state control in a way that its rivals do not.
The Golden Horse in Taipei, which has been around since 1962, is free to be daring and controversial because of its location in Taiwan — a self-governed democracy that split from mainland China in 1949.
The Hong Kong International Film Festival is also more established than Shanghai’s — it started in 1977, right during the city’s action-fueled cinematic boom — and also falls outside of the control of mainland censors.
Still, Shanghai was a pioneer when it started in 1993. For almost two decades, it did not have a single domestic rival until the Beijing International Film Festival opened in 2011.
“Shanghai was the first real international film festival in China, with lots of international stars attending and with premiere screenings of Western films in China — most of which never had a run in cinemas,” said Mathew Scott, a Hong Kong-based film critic who has been covering Asian cinema for two decades. “In some ways the feeling was that there they were going it alone somewhat, and then Beijing has since popped up with more central government support.”
“SIFF is important because it’s the only festival in the world that screens the breadth of contemporary mainland cinema,” said Stephen Cremin, the publisher of Film Business Asia, a trade publication. “It has regularly embraced new filmmakers from Greater China that haven’t yet participated at regional project markets. And, of course, there's real money in China.”
This year will mark the ninth SIFF for Mr. Cremin, who has been attending the festival since 2006. “Unlike the Beijing event, it’s a real film festival with a sincere love of cinema,” he added.
Alan Wong contributed reporting.