Movie fanatics rushed on Sunday to order tickets for rarely-screened popular and classic films that will be shown at the eighth annual Beijing International Film Festival starting April 6.
More than 2,400 tickets for five screenings of Wes Anderson's "The Grand Budapest Hotel" sold out in only 10 seconds on Taopiaopiao, a ticketing subsidiary of Alibaba Pictures, after online sales started at noon on Sunday. James Cameron's new version of "Titanic" in the high definition format Dolby Vision was next, with all of its six screenings sold out in 12 seconds. Legendary director Wong Kar-wai's "Chungking Express" was the third-fastest to sell out in 15 seconds.
Tickets also sold out soon to screenings of other movies, such as the restored editions of "Rashomon" and "The Seven Samurai" by Japanese film guru Akira Kurosawa, the "Dark Knight" trilogy by Christopher Nolan, "The Virgin Spring" by Swedish master Ingmar Bergman, never-before-released-in-China superhero flick "Deadpool," and rarely seen Chinese classics "Beijing Bicycle" and "My Memories of Old Beijing," as well as the opening and closing films of the festival, "A or B" and "Genghis Khan."
Taopiaopiao reps said this year's sales have broken several records for the Beijing International Film Festival, and that tickets sold out faster compared to last year's event. "But do box office results and records matter?" the ticketing app asked in a celebratory infographic posted on its social network accounts later. "They do matter, but not that much. What matters most is that we love movies and fans."
The festival features a "Beijing Film Panorama" section offering a carnival for fans of recent domestic and foreign blockbusters as well as older classics. Films by Ingmar Bergman and Wes Anderson as well as the "X-Men" and "Jurassic Park" franchises will have special screening segments. Another special segment of the panorama will mark the 40th anniversary of the country's reform and opening-up program through classic Chinese films, while yet another will celebrate women's empowerment by screening "Sacrificed Youth," "Angels Wear White" and "Battle of the Sexes."
Although the major events of the festival, including opening ceremony, Tiantan Awards and film industry forums, will take place from April 15 - 22, the movies in the Beijing Film Panorama will start screening as early as April 6 and end on April 23, one day after the festival's closing ceremony. In addition to feature films, virtual reality films as well as documentaries will also play major roles in the festival.
Source: china.org by zhang rui