World Lens: How the Shanghai Film Festival Puts Its Faith in a New Generation

Skip to main content By Mathew Scott Plus Icon Mathew Scott View All June 20, 2026 7:00pm Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment 'Atlantic Rhapsody' SIFF Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment Chinese filmmaker Zhong Kaifeng formally introduced himself to the world at the Shanghai International Film Festival on Saturday night, picking up the main Golden Goblet award for his debut, Atlantic Rhapsody. For the Golden Goblet jury — led by Hong Kong star Tony Leung Chiu-wai — the film is a “uniquely compelling visual experience.” For the 29-year-old Zhong, the story of a young man from northern China searching for meaning in life is a sign.

“I want to say that Atlantic is not a definition, it does not provide answers — but today it seems to have given me an answer, and that answer is to persist, to love, to work hard, and then to believe,” he said. Related Stories General News 'Atlantic Rhapsody' Takes Top Prize at Shanghai Film Festival Movies How the Shanghai Film Festival Is Embracing Cinema's Future: From AI to iPhone Moviemaking And for SIFF itself, the win was a fitting end to a festival that set out with the aim of putting young talent front and center. Zhong’s work is a case in point, a film the jury said “captivated and impressed” them with its “bold experimental approach [that] explores the absurdity of human life” — and the festival will hope it has unearthed a new voice in Chinese cinema.

Another exciting emerging talent was fittingly revealed in SIFF’s Asian New Talent awards, too, when first-timer Gong Yiwen won for her heartwarming coming-of-age drama Her First Taste, a film that emerged from the SIFF Project initiative for young filmmakers. “The film’s patient observation and sensitivity to the textures of ordinary life announce a new exciting voice in Asian cinema,” the Asian New Talent jury said. “Her First Taste is a memorable work about young love and coming of age, balancing emotional restraint with deep resonance, and marking Gong Yiwen as a filmmaker of great promise.”

The focus at SIFF this year has been on young filmmakers, with both a heavy presence of emerging talent from China and the region across the screenings and an emphasis on the support the festival has offered them through initiatives such as the SIFF ING Young Filmmakers Program and the SIFF YOUNG × Shanghai Young Filmmakers Support Program, with Joan Chen and Wen Muye acting as mentors. The festival counts 78 productions that have found cinema release after being nurtured across these programs over previous years. Several titles that came through the SIFF Project initiative also feature in this year’s lineup: Wan Bo’s suspense-filled drama Strangers in the Mountain, selected in the Asian New Talent competition, along with the Peng Chen- and Xu Wei-directed Desert Beneath the Ocean and Kangdrun’s Linka Linka, both elsewhere in the program.

Saturday night started the winding down of SIFF’s 10-day stretch, which on opening night had given fans a fix of stars both global and local — among them Leung and Michelle Yeoh, here also to promote her latest film, This Is My Time, her first Chinese-language production in nearly a decade, following her best actress Oscar for Everything Everywhere All at Once — along with jury members Guan Hu and Xin Zhilei. There were touching tributes to industry veterans Lisa Lu (Crazy Rich Asians) — 100 years old by the local calendar, still shining brightly on the red carpet as she appeared to accept a lifetime achievement award — and director Zhang Yimou, who picked up an award for his “outstanding” contribution to Chinese cinema. Still to come are screenings of the winners and an assortment of other titles, along with the closing film, Zhang Disha’s The Decisive Moment, which makes its world premiere in Shanghai on Sunday.

When the curtain comes down tonight, the official tally will be around 1,600 screenings of some 420 films across the city and others in the surrounding Yangtze River Delta region. There were sold-out screenings of hits from international festivals, including Cannes (Pawel Pawlikowski’s Fatherland), and palpable delight among film fans of all ages at some of the retrospectives — such as those devoted to the works of Ken Loach, Billy Wilder and Marilyn Monroe — which offered a rare chance to see international classics on the big screen in all their 4K-rendered glory. The diversity of the movies on show — and the audiences’ reaction — was highlighted best by Moroccan Yassine El Idrissi, who picked up the Golden Goblet for best director for his wonderfully humorous take on a lady who refuses to give in to age