Magnolia Awards entries increase for 29th Shanghai TV Festival

Magnolia Awards entries increase for 29th Shanghai TV Festival

By Joyce Xu

The 29th Shanghai TV Festival, opening on Monday (June 24) at Shanghai Exhibition Center, will run till June 28 with an array of programs for industry professionals and TV fans.

Since its establishment in 1986, the festival has developed into one of the most important international TV exchange platforms in Asia and an influential cultural brand of the city.

This year’s Magnolia Awards have received nearly 1,000 entries from 57 countries and regions across five continents. 

In the Drama section, there are approximately 190 TV series entries from China, while the number of foreign TV series has increased to nearly 170 from around 110 the previous year, a notable 53.7 percent growth. 

There’s also been a significant increase in entries for both the Documentary section and Animation section where domestic and foreign works compete together. Foreign entries account for 60 percent of all submissions in the Documentary section this year.

Chinese director Yan Jiangang, who chairs the jury panel of the Drama section, said that the deeply impressive nominees reflect diverse history, culture and social life. 

Veteran Indian director and producer Vikram Channa will be jury president of the Documentary section while French animation producer Frédéric Puech will lead the jury panel in Animation. 

On June 28, the Magnolia Awards Ceremony will be hosted at Lingang Performing Arts Center.

During the festival, high-quality programs from home and abroad will be broadcast across TV and streaming platforms, and also in offline screenings. 

This year's offline screenings will be accessible to citizens at 20 art venues, such as the China Art Museum, Power Station of Art, Shanghai Book City, and the East Branch of Shanghai Library.

Nominated entries and outstanding recent productions will be featured. Among them are the Italian TV series “The Camorrist,” British series “Inside No. 9” and BBC documentary series “Planet Earth Season 3.”

The cast and crews of such productions as “The Legend of Heroes,” “The League of Gentlemen” and “Inside No. 9” will also be invited to talk about their creations. Audiences will be able to interact with various actors including Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith and Emmanuelle Béart.

Also, this year’s festival is paying further attention to the remarkable growth of online production by organizing the Shanghai Micro-dramas Conference and themed forums.

It will also explore deep cross-border integration with cultural tourism to boost consumption. 

Technical innovation and industrial rejuvenation will also be discussed at the festival. 

The STVFORUM will focus on future trends in radio and television fields and the rapid development and application of innovative technologies, such as AIGC (Artificial Intelligence Generated Content).

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