The 28th Shanghai International Film Festival has appointed esteemed actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai as the jury chairman for its major competition, the Golden Cup Awards.
The festival opens on June 12th and runs until June 21st.
Director Leung has been a fixture in the Chinese language film industry for over 40 years, amassing over 100 screen credits and working with some of the most prominent directors in world cinema, including Wong Kar-wai, Zhang Yimou, Ang Li, John Woo, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Tran Anh Hung, and Ildiko Enyedi. He started his business in 1982 and first appeared on screen the following year.
“Cinema is the art of dreaming, and Shanghai is the ship on which the dreams of Chinese cinema will set sail,” Leung said in a video message released at the same time as the announcement.
Some of his best-known performances include the brilliant Ouyang Feng in Jeffrey Lau’s comedy The Eagle Shooting Heroes, the quietly defeated Chow Mo-wan in Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love, and the conflicted warrior Broken Sword in Zhang Yimou’s Heroes. Across vastly different disciplines and genres, Leung has consistently brought a deeply restrained interiority to his characters that has resonated with audiences and sparked critical conversations far beyond the Chinese-speaking world.
Three years ago, at the 80th Venice International Film Festival, commemorating 40 years since his screen debut, he became the first Chinese actor to win the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement. In a eulogy to mark the occasion, Ang Lee praised him as the kind of actor every director would want to work with, someone who held nothing back and raised the bar for everyone around him.
The Golden Goblet Awards are one of Asia’s most prestigious film awards. Shanghai, where Chinese cinema first took root, hosts the festival every year as part of its identity as a UNESCO City of Film.
