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Actress Hai Qing speaks as her fellow actresses Yao Chen, Liang Jing, Zhou Dongyu and Song Jia take the stage with her to raise awareness for the struggles faced by middle-aged actresses, at the closing ceremony of the 13th FIRST International Film Festival held in Xining, the capital of China's northwestern Qinghai province, July 28, 2019. [Photo/ China.org.cn]

5. The FIRST International Film Festival Xining

Funded by the Xining municipal government of Qinghai province as well as the China Film Critics Association, the FIRST International Film Festival Xining aims to discover and showcase emerging filmmakers and their early works across the globe. Held annually in July in Xining, FIRST made its debut in 2005 and has focused on filmmakers' first feature films and early works.

As a gathering of film professionals from all aspects of filmmaking, FIRST bridges the creative and business minds of the industry. It has made great effort to lay a path for art to meet with the industry and to showcase filmmakers and film projects with great potential. In doing so, it has played a significant role in boosting the Chinese film industry and discovering new and promising filmmakers. One of the ways it achieves this is by having an illustrious jury committee comprising established and esteemed filmmakers and maintaining a strict and fair juror system since 2012. Celebrated filmmakers such as Ann Hui, Xie Fei, Jiang Wen, Wong Kar-wai are amongst its past jury presidents. Over the last decade, a number of young filmmakers, including Fan Lixin, Ma Li, Hao Jie, Wen Muye and Xin Yukun, have had their careers skyrocket after receiving recognition and critical acclaim at the festival.