THE Shanghai International Film Festival, China’s most established cinema event, has unveiled the opening titles and competition selection for its 2019 edition.

The festival will kick off Saturday with a double bill of Chinese WWII epic “The Eight Hundred” and local drama “Beautiful Voyage” from filmmaker Zhang Jiarui.

Landing “The Eight Hundred” as an opener is something of a coup for the Shanghai event. The film, produced by Huayi Brothers with a lavish budget of over US$80 million, is the first Chinese action film shot entirely on IMAX cameras, and it is expected to become one of the country’s biggest event movies of the summer when it opens wide July 5.

Chinese action hero Wu Jing, star of Chinese mega-blockbuster “Wolf Warrior 2” and “The Wandering Earth,” will bring the star power to Shanghai’s opening red carpet, serving as the event’s official 2019 ambassador. English actor Tom Hiddleston, already well known to local filmgoers as Loki from the “Avengers” franchise, will help wrap up the festivities by attending the closing ceremony June 24.

Other stars slated to walk the carpet and participate in SIFF events include “X-Men” star Nicholas Hoult, Milla Jovovich, Taiwanese actor Chen Bolin, Japanese stars Ayaka Miyoshi and Mao Inoue, and a slew of Chinese mainland talent, including actresses Yao Chen, Ni Ni, Deng Jiajia, Zhou Dongyu and Yong Mei.

Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan, winner of the 2014 Cannes Palme d’Or, is presiding over the jury that will decide the winners of SIFF’s annual Golden Goblet Awards.

Ceylan is joined on the jury by Chinese actress Zhao Tao, Italian director Paolo Genovese (whose 2016 film “Perfect Strangers” was remade as Chinese thriller “Kill Mobile,” earning US$93 million last year), Russia’s Aleksey German Jr. (director of the period biopic “Dovlatov”), Indian hitmaker Rajkumar Hirani (“3 Idiots”), Mexican producer Nicolas Celis (“Roma”) and Chinese actor Wang Jingchun (winner of this year’s Berlin Silver Bear for best actor).

Shanghai’s competition lineup includes a broad sampling of world cinema, with a discernible emphasis on filmmaking from countries located along the Belt and Road. Notably, not a single film from North America made Shanghai’s selection this year.

Main competition titles include Russian director Pavel Lungin’s war drama “Leaving Afghanistan” (also known as “Brother”), Iranian film “Castle of Dreams,” German family drama “Many Happy Returns,” Chinese crime film “Vortex” and Mexican actor Gael García Bernal’s directorial debut “Chicuarotes,” which recently bowed at Cannes.

The festival’s Asian New Talent Awards, which honor emerging film professionals from the region, will be handed out by a jury headed by Chinese star director Ning Hao (“Crazy Alien”).

SIFF’s documentary and animation sections, meanwhile, will be assessed by juries led by Russian director Viktor Kossakovsky (“Aquarela”) and Irish filmmaker Tomm Moore (“The Breadwinner,” “The Secret of Kells”), respectively.

Altogether, SIFF will screen approximately 500 films across its key competition categories, country specific sidebars and historical retrospectives. Festival organizers said they received more than 3,900 film submissions from 112 countries and regions this year. Nearly half of the applications, over 1,800 titles from 53 countries, came from countries and territories participating in the Belt and Road Initiative.

(SD-Agencies)