Magnolia Awards Jurors Make a Call for Originality, Authenticity and Emotional Truth

Jurors for the 31st Shanghai TV Festival's Magnolia Awards talked about the criteria they will use to assess the diverse range of entries during a press meeting on Wednesday, June 24.

With more than 1,000 submissions from 60 countries and regions this year, the jurors will select the finest works in four categories: Chinese TV drama, foreign TV drama, animation and documentary.

The jury for the animation category, chaired by Irish director David McCamley, includes Malaysian producer Burhanuddin bin Md. Radzi and Chinese director Lin Hun. When asked about the criteria to be applied for selecting the best animation, David McCamley said unequivocally that originality and distinctiveness were the key determining factors.

"I'm delighted to see that the submissions this time are exceptionally diverse," he said. "During the judging process, I will focus on three criteria: whether the content is sufficiently personalized, whether the stories are original, and whether the creators have genuinely poured their hearts into these works."

Fully agreeing with McCamley's emphasis on originality, Lin Hun made additional suggestions to enhance Chinese animation’s better penetration into overseas markets. He insisted that producers should draw inspiration from China and employ Chinese narrative techniques to establish and reinforce a distinct identity and convey Chinese culture to the world.

The jury for the documentary category, led by Italian director Lorena Luciano with Singaporean producer Donovan Chan and Chinese producer Han Yi, shared their perspectives on documentary production. Luciano believes that documentaries remain irreplaceable even in an era when AI technology has advanced significantly.

"The strength of documentaries, for sure, is that we need to maintain a very high drive to meet the truth, to record the reality of stories on the ground, to see with our own eyes and open our arms," Luciano said. "And this is something that AI cannot do because AI is a matter of gathering information that already exists, but the truth is, evolution is, in constant flux."

Han Yi noted that people’s lives share commonalities, particularly in emotional aspects, and this is precisely why documentaries can transcend cultural barriers.

The jury for the Chinese TV drama category comprises nine experts from the television industry. Chaired by Chinese director Zhang Yongxin, it includes Chinese actor Liu Dan, Chinese professor Lu Rong, Chinese actor Ning Li, Chinese art director Tu Nan, Chinese director Xing Jianjun, and Chinese screenwriter Xu Meng. French producer Jimmy Desmarais and German executive producer Moritz Polter were invited to serve as jury members for the foreign TV drama category.

Zhang Yongxin, who won the Best Director Award at the 27th Magnolia Awards as a competitor, revealed that this role transition has given him the opportunity to learn from the other side of the table. As a juror, he vowed to comprehensively evaluate a work's narrative structure, the actors' performances, and its spiritual depth. Other jury members reached a consensus on the essential elements required for a TV drama to resonate with audiences.

"To ensure that audiences in target regions truly understand and embrace the drama, it is important to establish a framework that is familiar to them, and then fill it with authentic, compelling details that move them," Lu Rong said.

Jimmy Desmarais further concluded a TV drama "must not only respect local identities and cultures but also embody universal emotions and values."