‘The Botanist,’ ‘Lonely Musketeer,’ ‘The Poet’ and ‘Peacock’ Set for Beijing’s New Filmmakers Section

The Beijing International Film Festival has unveiled the 15 titles that will screen in the Forward Future section of its 15th edition later this month.

The Forward Future section, launched in 2014, is dedicated to discovering and promoting new filmmakers, focusing on directors’ first or second features. Hungarian director, screenwriter, and producer Béla Tarr (Damnation, Satan’s Tango, The Man From London) will serve as the president of the jury for the Forward Future program. Rounding out his jury will be Chinese actress Jin Chen, also known as Gina Jin, Chinese actor Song Yang, Japanese director, screenwriter and actor Sabu, and Swiss director and screenwriter Cyril Schäublin.

Beijing organizers promise “innovative” spirit, “unique styles,” and “cutting-edge” filmmaking in the Forward Future section, along with insight into the thinking and concerns of young filmmakers from all over the world. 

Featured in the program are movies from first-time Chinese directors, namely Jing Yi’s The Botanist, which just world premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, and Tao Shen’s Floating Clouds Obscure the Sun, as well as Austrian writer-director’s Bernhard Wenger’s Peacock. Check out the full lineup for the section below.

The 15th edition of the Beijing festival takes place in the Chinese capital April 18-26.

Chinese actor-director Jiang Wen (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Let the Bullets Fly) will serve as the head of the main competition jury at the festival, which will hand out its Tiantan Award. The other jurors are Chinese American director and actor Joan Chen (The Last Emperor), British director David Yates (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), Chinese actor Ni Ni, Finnish director Teemu Nikki, Swiss director and actor Vincent Perez, and art director Tim Yip from Hong Kong.

Here is the lineup for the Forward Future program at the Beijing film festival:

Nobody Wants to Shoot a Woman (director Kerry Ann Enright)

My Eternal Summer (Sylvia Le Fanu)

At the Bench (Yoshiyuki Okuyama)

The Lonely Musketeer (Nicolai Schumann)

Espina (Daniel Poler)

Peacock (Bernhard Wenger)

The Poet (Felix Umarov)

Sugar Island (Johanné Gómez Terrero)

Our Lovely Pig Slaughter (Adam Martinec)

In the Name of Blood (Akaki Popkhadze)

Mongrels (Jerome Yoo)

Nyamula (Oskar Weimar)

It Is Only Sound That Remains (Ali Farahmand)

Floating Clouds Obscure the Sun (Tao Shen)

The Botanist (Yi Jing)