Festival to encourage local young film talents
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Video sharing website Tudou, known for encouraging young emerging filmmakers and amateurs, is holding its fourth Tudou Video Festival. Teaming up with the independent Sundance Film Festival to help outstanding filmmakers, the winners of the Tudou Video Festival will be sent to Sundance for further competition.
Last year, the festival got 5,585 video submissions in three months for the competition, in four major and 15 others categories, and has seen new filmmakers have been emerge; the Chopstick Brothers' Old Boy has been one of the most visited videos on the Internet in China, while Net Addition War went to the Hawaii Film Festival.
"Tudou's slogan is 'Everyone is the director of their own lives.' We want to use the slogan for the festival…encouraging new filmmakers and young talents, to find the new inspirational Chinese works. We want Tudou to be the easiest and cheapest way for new talents to show their works," said Wang Wei, CEO of Tudou.
"A lot of well-known directors had a difficult time making small films before. If there was the Internet years ago, things would be different, " said Hong Kong director Johnnie To. "Now we pay attention to young people in China. They are inspirational and the new future," he added.
A special foundation fund of 1 million yuan ($152.1 million) has been set aside for the festival, while artist Zhou Yi has been announced as the art director, and Trevor Groth the Director of Programming and Todd Luoto, Shorts Programmer at Sundance Film Festival will join the festival as judges. Applications and submissions are taking place now. The nominations and ceremony will be announced next month.
