The 21st Shanghai TV Festival Overview and Preparation Progress

This year, the Shanghai TV Festival will cover program awards, International Film and TV Market, Magnolia TV Forum, Magnolia Awards. Meanwhile, the festival will also hold Outstanding TV Program Showcase and Shanghai Students Television Festival. The 5-day television festival will exhibit television attraction, hot topics and industry trends.

I. Main Events

1. Professional Award Ceremony

Known for its authoritative and impartiality, Shanghai TV Festival Magnolia Award is the earliest TV award in the country. Over one thousand programs from more than 70 countries and regions registered for this year’s Mongolia Award. It is composed of four sections, TV series, Documentaries, Animations and Variety, where they capture TV industry trends as well as new progress. After rigorous preliminary selection, 10 Chinese TV series, 6 foreign TV series, 9 documentaries, 10 animations and 20 variety shows will be nominated. Judging on TV series, documentary and animation sections are led by Yan Jian’gang, Emmy Award winner Richard Bradley, and Asian Animation Summit founder Tim Brooke-Hunt. 12 world-renowned professional judges will judge the nominated films. Variety section gathered top programs from various TV channels. The section winners will be decided by votes from 30 professional judges.

2. Forum Guides Industry Trends

Magnolia TV Forum will position the industry benchmark by inviting top professionals at home and abroad. They will provide their own perspectives during the festival, explore together the television industry’s future progress. Topics include prime hour TV series broadcast restrictions, survival of urban dramas in China and overseas, popular film trends, variety shows future, golden age of documentary, new height for animation films. The depth and relevance of topics encourage guests to participate in discussion, promote healthy growth of the industry.

3. Market Integration Promote Exchange

Currently, TV program trading market of the International Film and TV Market, international new media and radio and TV equipment market has been sold out. It gathered a group of top video production and technology companies from home and abroad, exhibiting a complete industry chain with a variety of contents. International Film and TV Market will establish a special zone for overseas productions this year. We encourage overseas companies to join our exhibits and exchange with Chinese and other overseas companies, thereby promote exchanging of resources and trading programs.

4. The Award Ceremony Will Be Well Prepared

The theme of this year’s award ceremony will be “Magnolia Blossom”. Not only will we invite TV stars, we will also invite those heroes who quietly dedicated themselves for the TV industry. They will talk about their stories with TV and share their love and passion for TV industry with the audience. Meanwhile, we will also recall the many achievements in the film industry at home and abroad from the past year. During the new film promotion of the award ceremony warm-up period, crews from ten new TV series that will debut in the second half of the year will appear on stage. The most anticipated Magnolia Award winners will also be announced during the Magnolia Award Ceremony.

II. Highlights

1. Simple, High Quality Award Structure

This is another year of Magnolia Award. In order to respond the TV trends and optimize TV awards, the original 23 award categories will be shortened into four sections (TV series, documentary, animation, variety TV show), totaling 15 prestigious awards. By shrinking award selections, not only will it elevate the quality of award winners, it also coincides with the Chinese government’s call for adjustments in award selection process. For the judging process, Shanghai TV Festival Organizing Committee invited Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited as independent polling agency in order to ensure fair, authoritative and professional judging process.

2. Further Merging of the Film and TV Market

This is the second year since the establishment of International Film and TV Market. Last year, film markets in Shanghai TV Festival and Shanghai International Film Festival merged, which was well received with outstanding results. After a year of working out their differences, the International Film and TV Market expanded. This time it will cover film and TV companies, broadcasting platform, film base and technical service companies. Each stage of the TV industry chain will be reflected in the International Film and TV Market, which also include active participation from foreign operators and agencies. Exhibition space layout will also optimize its functions, thereby providing convenient services for guests and exhibitors and creating a diverse, efficient and quality exchange platform, supporting the industry development.

3. Outstanding Film Screenings, Combination of Culture and Education

The popular Magnolia Outstanding TV Program Showcase will also be taking place this year as well. The screening has been popular for many years. Shanghai TV Festival Organizing Committee carefully selected a few dozen popular and outstanding TV programs from home and abroad, which will be broadcasted in Shanghai drama channel, arts and humanities channel, documentary channel, foreign language channel and cartoon channel. As a special project of Shanghai TV and an outstanding project of Higher Education Establishment of Ministry of Education, the 8th Shanghai Students Television Festival will promote film and television exchanges among the younger generation. This event is jointly organized by Shanghai Institute of Visual Art and 50 other universities around the country.

With a unique international position, the 21st Shanghai TV Festival leads cultural exchange while gathers industry resources and promotes economic progress. Its trendy highlights strengthen the influence of the TV festival on the progress in Chinese television industry.