THE members of the Beijing International Film Festival’s (BIFF) jury for its Tiantan Awards will likely outshine any of the titles in competition, with top international film names including actor Jean Reno (“The Crimson Rivers”), director Rob Minkoff (“The Lion King”), and as previously reported, jury head Bille August (“Pelle the Conqueror”) on board to pick the winners.

    Joining the three jury members above are Chinese actress Jiang Wenli (“Farewell My Concubine”), Romanian director Radu Jude (“Scarred Hearts”), Hong Kong director Mabel Cheung (“The Illegal Immigrant”), and producer Paolo del Brocco (“Fire at Sea”).

    That esteemed group will be judging 15 films from 19 countries, including two mainstream Chinese films, “Mr. No Problem” and one of 2016’s top box office performers, “Operation Mekong.” The other films are: “A Kid” (France); “Alma de Sant Pere” (Finland); “Coffee” (Italy, China, Belgium); “Dim the Fluorescents” (Canada); “House of Others” (Georgia, Russia, Spain, Croatia); “Kanon” (Japan); “Luka” (Georgia); “Night of a 1,000 Hours” (Luxembourg, Austria, Holland); “The Death and Life of Otto Bloom” (Australia); “The Poisoning Angel” (France); “The Sis” (Iran); “Tiger Theory” (Czech Republic, Slovak Republic); and “Two Lottery Tickets” (Romania), according to media reports.

    BIFF, which has already begun public screenings but begins in earnest Sunday, is featuring seven David Lynch films, showing all seven installments of “The Fast and the Furious” series ahead of the worldwide and China debut of “The Fate of the Furious” on Friday, and similarly screening all of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies ahead of the expected release of “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales” in May.

    Documentaries will form one of most important activities in the 7th Beijing International Film Festival, with a wide variety of offerings, the organizers have revealed.

    The festival this year has invited French documentary master Jacques Perrin to be honorary president of the documentary section and his new work showing the Earth’s “Four Seasons” will serve as the opening documentary. An academic seminar about Perrin’s nature films and a press conference will also be held.

    To echo the national strategy, the theme of the Belt and Road will also be present at the festival.

    A total of 223 documentaries have been selected for review, many of which have already received awards at the Oscars, the Berlin Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, and IDFA.

    The Beijing Film Market, one of the international film festival events, runs April 19-21, with 190 exhibitors scheduled to participate, including 74 international participants.

    (SD-Agencies)