BEIJING, June 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- iQIYI Inc. (NASDAQ:
IQ) ("iQIYI"), an innovative, market-leading online entertainment
company in China, is pleased to
announce that Memoria, a Spanish-language film co-produced by iQIYI
Pictures and Xstream Pictures has been included in the official
competition lineup of the 74th Cannes International Film Festival (the
"Festival").
On June 3rd, Cannes Film Festival announced its 2021
lineup, with Memoria shortlisted in the official competition. The
film is directed by Thai Palme d'Or winner Apichatpong
Weerasethakul, starring Tilda
Swinton, and with the famous Chinese director Jia Zhang-Ke serving as co-producer. The
Festival will take place from July 6th to
17th, 2021.
The shortlisting of Memoria at the Festival marks the fourth
time an iQIYI-produced movie is selected to compete at one of the
world's three major international film festivals. Prior to Memoria,
Spycies was selected at Annecy Goes to Cannes; Pluto
Moment was chosen to screen at Directors' Fortnight; and
Balloon was shortlisted for the Horizons (Orizzonti) section at the
Venice Film Festival. Cannes' main competition section is one of the
most important sections of the festival. The shortlisting of
Memoria once again demonstrates iQIYI's strength in delivering
films of international caliber.
Memoria, Apichatpong's long-awaited first feature shot outside
his native Thailand, is set in
Colombia and stars Tilda Swinton and Jeanne
Balibar. The plot follows Jessica (Tilda Swinton) who has not been able to sleep
ever since being startled by a loud 'bang' at daybreak. While
travelling to Bogotá to visit her sister, Jessica befriends Agnes
(Jeanne Balibar), an archaeologist
studying the human remains discovered in a tunnel under
construction. Jessica visits Agnes at the excavation site. In a
small town nearby, she encounters a fish scaler, Hernan
(Elkin Diaz), and they share their
memories by the river. As the day comes to a close, Jessica is
awakened to a sense of clarity.
Xstream Pictures was founded in 2006 by Jia Zhang-Ke, an award-winning Chinese director,
writer and producer. Jia is regarded as one of the most
representative filmmakers of Chinese cinema. In addition, Jia has
been discovering new talents and supporting their productions at
home and abroad, including Hello! Mr Tree(2011), Memory Looks at
Me(2012),Forgetting to Know you(2014), K(2015), Life After Life
(2016), One Night on the Wharf
(2018), The Calming(2020), The Best Is Yet To Come (2020) , Tracing
Her Shadow (2020) and others.
iQIYI has a longstanding relationship with Jia. His films
including Still Life, 24 City, Hello! Mr. Tree, Everybody's Fine
and The Continent were all released online via iQIYI's streaming
platform. Furthermore, iQIYI Film Center became one of the first
alliance companies to support the talent projects of Shanxi Film
Academy, a newly founded film school to which Jia Zheng-Ke was appointed to be the Dean of
this April.
In the future, iQIYI plans to produce and co-produce more films
like Memoria, which includes world-leading talents from different
countries. When iQIYI interviewed Jia on his thoughts on the
changes in the industry, he said that he would embrace new
technologies while maintaining a humanistic spirit.
"Thanks to the advent of the mobile internet era, in the future,
artists from different countries and regions can work together in
different parts of the world to complete post-production," Jia
said.
With regards to the inclusion of Memoria in the main competition
lineup, Song Jia, Vice President of
iQIYI and General Manager of the Film Center, said that iQIYI hopes
to forge partnerships with other top filmmakers around the world.
"We will bear in mind the original intention of film creation, so
that we can provide high-quality artistic films for our users,"
Song said.
iQIYI is committed to investing in and creating world-class
films for viewers globally. In terms of producing more content,
iQIYI invests heavily in filmmaking and has also started to produce
movie content. At the 2021 iQIYI World Conference held recently,
iQIYI released its 2021 iQIYI Original Film List, which comprised
of 33 films. These movies will be released through either theaters
or online platforms.
Additionally, to support young filmmakers and talented
producers, iQIYI has entered strategic collaborations with
well-known filmmakers such as Ning
Hao, Rao Xiaozhi, and Lu
Yang. The results of these collaborations will see the
Company continuing to provide users with a diverse range of
high-quality and innovative film contents.
iQIYI has also built a "Cloud Cinema" platform, which allows
filmmakers from around the world to cooperate. All films, intended
either for online or theatre circulation, as well as films produced
by iQIYI, can be distributed through iQIYI Cloud Cinema, a fair,
transparent, and robust online trading platform. On Cloud Cinema,
film owners can set the viewing prices for their films and users
would pay a fee for access to view a single film, which enhances
box office returns. Through these initiatives, the Company aims to
further cement its position as China's leading online entertainment
platform.
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SOURCE iQIYI