Yangcheng Evening News reporter Huang Zhouhui, Chen Xiaonan, Liang Shanyin.
The 20th China (Guangzhou) International Documentary Film Festival closed on December 7. More than 5,000 guests from home and abroad said goodbye to the next documentary festival and reunited. As the first documentary festival to be held offline in the past four years, this year's event attracted many documentarians from home and abroad to participate. During the four-day event, people met, collaborated, and progressed because of documentaries. To a certain extent, the development process of the China (Guangzhou) International Documentary Festival has also become a "documentary" of Chinese cultural dissemination and exchange.
In the 20 years since its establishment, the "circle of friends" has been further expanded.
At the opening ceremony of this year's documentary festival, China (Guangzhou) International Documentary Festival officially signed strategic cooperation agreements with three overseas documentary festival exhibition institutions, including the Mediterranean European Documentary Market, New Zealand Wingman Film Festival, and Serbian Documentary Filmmakers Association, to further expand their "circle of friends".
Since its inception in 2003, the China (Guangzhou) International Documentary Festival has been based on the local area and radiating to the world, and has won domestic and foreign industry support through continuous accumulation, which has significantly enhanced its authority and popularity, and has become more and more influential in the international industry, demonstrating cultural self-confidence in international exchanges.
According to the organizing committee, in 2013, the China (Guangzhou) International Documentary Festival cooperated with international documentary institutions for the first time; In 2017, eight internationally renowned documentary professional festivals and exhibitions gathered in Guangzhou for the first time; In 2023, the China (Guangzhou) International Documentary Festival will reach content cooperation with more than 40 festival and exhibition institutions in different aspects, and set up programs with many international distribution companies such as Cat&Docs, Split Screen, and Taskvoski Films.
Guest of honour, Paul Lewis (Canadian), Director of the World Association of Science and Documentary Producers, praised the China (Guangzhou) International Documentary Festival, "It is the oldest and largest documentary festival in Asia, and it is a great place to meet new people. ”
According to reports, in the future, Guangdong will further make full use of the documentary festival, a national cultural business card, continue to expand domestic and foreign exchange and cooperation platforms, attract world-class teams to climb the creative peak, and jointly promote the high-quality development of the documentary industry.
The cooperation map breaks the circle and breeds high-quality documentaries.
The 20-year-old China (Guangzhou) International Documentary Festival has created a high-level communication platform for Chinese and foreign documentarians, and has nurtured more high-quality documentaries.
A total of more than 1,000 domestic and foreign professional institutions participated in this year's documentary festival, and more than 80 professional documentary activities were launched around the collection and evaluation, market transactions, industry exchanges, professional forums, international training and other links, and the panoramic insight into the documentary industry has reached an unprecedented scale and depth.
More than 5,000 people participated in this event, and authoritative experts and outstanding producers in the industry gathered to jointly promote the industry experience and market trends of pan-documentary content creation, and promote the creation of high-quality content for documentary entertainment and documentary variety shows. The organizer also invited representatives of culture, business and tourism to study the application scenarios of documentary content in IP, story and communication, and expand the commercial monetization path of documentary content.
The "China Story" International Proposal Conference set up by the China (Guangzhou) International Documentary Film Festival has always attracted much attention. In this year's documentary festival, international broadcast platforms, production companies and distributors gathered in Guangzhou with funds, projects and other resources to participate in screenings, pre-sales and finished film transactions. Bilibili, Autlook and other organizations provide cash prizes or distribution opportunities, and the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union has set up a special proposal exhibition for the first time, hoping to promote multi-party cultural exchanges and integration through the co-production and distribution of documentaries. In the end, programs such as "Ageless Eros" won the "Top Ten Plans".
The documentary "Thousands of Miles Away" directed by Chinese director Zhang Weimin won the "Outstanding Documentary Feature Film of Chinese Stories" of this year's "Golden Cotton Tree". She told reporters: "In 2019, I took "Thousands of Miles Away" to participate in the proposal conference of the documentary festival. At that time, I already experienced the internationalization of the China (Guangzhou) International Documentary Festival. ”
Huang Haibo, deputy director of Phoenix TV's Chinese channel, said: "I believe that the information exchange of the Guangzhou International Documentary Festival will have a positive effect on Chinese and foreign documentary production institutions and platforms in the subsequent output of content." ”
Embracing new technologies, documentary writing has a wider path.
The storm of AI new technologies has swept the documentary industry, occupying an eye-catching position in this documentary festival and becoming a hot topic for documentarians. Generative AI has not only become the subject of documentary creation, but also has a place in all aspects of film and television production.
The topic of the documentary enthusiastically embraces new technologies, and "My AI Lover" won the "Golden Cotton" and was awarded the "Excellent Documentary Short Film of Chinese Stories"; "Self-Help Guide in the AI Era" won the proposal of Bilibili's preferred documentary. This year's documentary festival focuses on new topics such as new trends in the world's documentary industry technology, virtual production, and ChatGPT AI technology in industry exchanges and professional forums.
Youku revealed the key layout of virtual production at the "Documentary 2024 Content Creation and Sharing Conference", which will establish character models through the latest digital human technology to create China's first drama-based historical documentary "History of China" presented by hyper-realistic character animation; Isabel Riva from Rivalibre Consulting shared the application of ChatGPT and AI technology to image production links such as data investigation, video generation, and production in the "ChatGPT AI Technology and Documentary Workshop".
Isabel Riva believes that AI technology has potential advantages such as improving documentary productivity, assisting creative visualization, and transferring computing power to the cloud, providing more creative tools and resources for documentary creators. AI technology has also changed the way documentaries are told, providing creators with a broader creative space.