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City, Culture and Society 32 (2023) 100506
Available online 17 February 2023
1877-9166/© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc-nd/4.0/).
Cultural events and the city: The migration of FIRST International Film
Festival from Beijing to Xining, China
Hui Wang
a
, Shih-yang Kao
b
,
*
a
Department of Geography and Planning, University of Liverpool, United Kingdom
b
Department of Urban Planning and Design, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China
ARTICLE INFO
Handling Editor: Prof. Andy Pratt
Keywords:
Cultural events
Film festivals
Cities in inland China
Urban development
Chinese lm industry
ABSTRACT
In existing studies on the relationship between cultural events and urban transformation, neoliberalism narra-
tives of urban entrepreneurship have been prominently emphasised. As this paper argues, discussions of the
cultural economy rarely pay sufcient attention to the agency of the creative class, and often fail to consider that
those modes of urban governance may differ. This paper draws on a study of the geographical factors involved in
developing the FIRST International Film Festival, which was held in the city of Xining on the Tibetan Plateau. It
explores the reasons for the relocation of the FIRST International Film Festival from Beijing to Xining, and the
purposes and ways in which Xining employs the FIRST International Film Festival. From these ndings, the study
suggests that the geographical expressions of cultural industries themselves, as well as the diversity of devel-
opment interests and considerations in a particular place, are essential to gain a comprehensive understanding of
the connections between cultural events and the city.
1. Introduction
Every summer, for about ten days, the city of Xining—the provincial
capital of Qinghai situated at the north-eastern edge of the Tibetan
Plateau—would be transformed into a host of a festival that celebrates
the year’s avant-garde, independent lms produced in China (Fig. 1).
1
The catalyst of this transformation is the FIRST International Film
Festival (FIFF), which many young Chinese lmmakers consider a ‘must-
attend’ event for their career development. For Xining locals, the FIFF
has helped the city to move beyond its reputation as ‘the gateway to
Tibet’, which sounds increasingly a clich´
e nowadays because many
cities and towns surrounding the Tibetan Plateau – Chengdu, Kangding,
Ya’an, Lhasa, Kathmandu, etc. – have been using the same phrase to
brand themselves. The event has brought to the city not only thought-
provoking lms but also promising lmmakers, state-of-the-art
screening equipment, and vibrant public conversations about lms
and the arts of lmmaking (Fig. 2). FIFF has, in other words, brought
Xining into the universe of China’s booming lm industry, which has its
historical roots in the country’s coast, specically the more
economically advanced metropolises of Shanghai and Beijing.
2
Xining is, nevertheless, an unusual location for a lm festival
considering the efforts that the FIFF Committee has to make to ensure
the success of the event. The FIFF committee is based in China’s capital
city, Beijing, which is 1600 km away from Xining (Fig. 3). The lack of
lm schools in Xining and the city’s under-developed lm market means
that the FIFF Committee must recruit and train volunteers in Beijing and
then transport them to Xining, where they also need to be housed and
fed. Moreover, in Xining there is no local business or organisation
capable of converting lms into the Digital Cinema Package (DCP), the
delivery format required for today’s lm screenings. Thus, the Com-
mittee has to collect DCP les from lmmakers in advance and, for the
sake of safety, carefully protect the shipment of the hard drives from
Beijing to Xining. In addition, the projectors and speakers needed for the
outdoor screenings are all shipped from Beijing to Xining. Last but not
least, technical professionals are also sent from Beijing, who install and
operate the equipment, together with a team of stage designers from
Beijing who create the award ceremony. Bringing a lm festival up to
the Tibetan Plateau is a matter that would cost a tremendous amount of
* Corresponding author. EB422, 111 Ren’ai Road, Suzhou Industrial Park, Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, 215123, China.
E-mail addresses: hui.wang3@liverpool.ac.uk (H. Wang), shihyang.kao@xjtlu.edu.cn (S.-y. Kao).
1
Qinghai is one of the least developed provinces in China. From the demographic point of view, urbanisation in Qinghai was 54.74% in 2018, lower than the
national average of 59.8% (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2019).
2
According to China Film Producers’Association (2021), there are 196 lm production companies in China. Among them, 102 are based either in Beijing or
Shanghai. More than half of public companies whose primary business is lms were registered in Beijing or Shanghai as well.
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
City, Culture and Society
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ccs
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2023.100506
Received 27 May 2022; Received in revised form 25 January 2023; Accepted 12 February 2023
City, Culture and Society 32 (2023) 100506
2
effort in planning, preparation, and coordination. Perhaps, there is
something unique in Xining that the Chinese lmmakers simply could
not nd in the more modernised city of Beijing.
Literature that interrogates the relationship between cultural events
and the city is dominated by narratives of urban entrepreneurialism (e.
g., Ganga et al., 2021; García, 2004; Kana, 2012; Sengupta, 2016; Shin,
2014; Wu et al., 2016), which, as it is commonly understood, arose in the
1970s as a response to emergent challenges associated with the pro-
motion of neoliberal globalisation (in particular, the dismantling of the
Fordist production system and inner-city decline). Cultural policies and
event programmes were understood as urban regeneration (or, in a more
fashionable term, ‘place-making’) strategies carried out by cities and
regions to develop the so-called ‘creative economy’ that is now consid-
ered by many as the key to ensuring local competitiveness under glob-
alisation (Florida, 2014; Landry, 2000). In the more recent years, this
eld of study has been further advanced by calls to pay more attention to
problems of gentrication and displacement (Davis & Thornley, 2010;
Houdart, 2012). In this line of critical reection, Seo (2020) and Virani
(2020) have helpfully explored the potential of various forms of com-
munity engagement in fostering cultural events that are more responsive
to local needs. Although the existing literature has helped untangle the
increasingly complex connection between cultural events and urban
transformation, little attention has been paid to the question of how the
creative economy interprets cultural policy and interacts with different
modes of urban governance. As a matter of fact, the creative economy
has rarely been considered a driving force behind the event, and as a
result of which the views and practices of the creative class (artists,
curators, lmmakers, etc.) are often relegated to a matter of secondary
concerns. This leaves one to wonder how those who take part in the
creative economy articulate the relationship between events and geog-
raphy, and how cities capitalise on their temporal-spatial imaginations.
Drawing on a detailed case study of the evolution of FIFF, this paper
argues that event-led urban development in China’s inland regions is
embedded within the nation’s uneven geography. The breath-taking
construction of urban modernity in China’s coastal regions has turned
out to be a source of envy for the people living in inland areas, while
being experienced by many living in those coastal regions as a suffo-
cating process that they would want to escape from, even just tempo-
rarily. For people in the lm industry, the pursuit of high modernism by
municipalities in coastal regions – which has been mediated through
discourses about ‘social stability’ and expansion of the censorship bu-
reaucracy – has left little room for independent lms’ survival. This
eventually prompted the migration of the FIFF from its original host city,
Beijing, to Xining, where the local government took a relatively laissez-
faire stance toward lm screening. For ofcials in Xining, however, by
utilising the lm festival’s geographic imagination in relation to Xining,
they are able to create a showcase of urbanisation with political intent.
The remaining part of this paper consists of four sections. First, it
discusses the theoretical and methodological issues that have motivated
the research and guided its development. This is followed by an exam-
ination of Xining as Chinese lmmakers’ preferred location for a lm
festival. The third section discusses how the city of Xining has taken
advantage of the FIFF to represent the development of its urban areas.
The nal section summarises the discussion and draws a conclusion.
2. Cultural events and urban development
This research is built on the premise that existing theories from po-
litical economists on the geography of the cultural economy can help
further advance our understanding of the relationship between cultural
events and the city. Specically, we found inspiration in the work of
Amin and Thrift (2007), Lash and Urry (1994), and Scott (2000, 2004),
who argue that the development of the cultural economy is a
geographical process subject to both the law of economic agglomeration
Fig. 1. The open-air screening was held at a plaza surrounded by retail stores,
restaurants, pubs, and hotels (Photo by Hui Wang on July 25, 2021).
Fig. 2. A small seminar with two directors at the 2021 FIFF (Photo by Hui
Wang on July 27, 2021).
Fig. 3. The locations of Xining and Beijing.
H. Wang and S.-y. Kao
City, Culture and Society 32 (2023) 100506
3
and local specicities. Thus, we have resisted the common tendency to
see events in cities simply as place-making (or, more specically, city
branding) strategies (e.g., Caves, 2000; Evans, 2001; Getz, 1991; Quinn,
2005). Instead, we interpret them as a geographical expression of the
constantly evolving cultural economy. In constructing our case study of
FIFF, we therefore place lmmakers at the centre of our analysis. We
interrogated their context-specic urban experiences and asked how the
experiences have helped shape their imagination of an ideal lm
festival.
Along the way of pursuing an in-depth understanding of the migra-
tion of FIFF from Beijing to Xining, we have developed three proposi-
tions that we believe can further deepen ongoing conversations about
how to theorise the relationship between cultural events and the city.
The rst proposition is that cultural events are multifaceted: they have
both consumption and production dimensions. Scholarship in the
existing eld of study (as identied in the Introduction section) often
links the creation of cultural events directly to the rise of consumerism,
without considering the possibility that for those involved in the creative
economy, an event can mean more than just marketing and selling (see
similar critiques in Pratt, 2008; Martin & Grodach, 2020). In our study of
FIFF’s migration to Xining, urban consumption can hardly be considered
a factor, as the size of the city’s lm market pales in comparison to those
of major coastal cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. This paper shows
the importance of FIFF in enabling young Chinese lmmakers to create
high-quality lms: in Xining, relatively out of reach of the expanding
censorship bureaucracy, lmmakers are able to exchange ideas more
freely with their peers and learn skills, experiences and perspectives
from established lmmakers. Such networking opportunities are indis-
pensable to the advancement of their careers in China’s
fast-transforming lm industry.
Second, cultural production as a force that makes an event mean-
ingful can manifest itself at a variety of geographical scales. One of the
problems of employing popular existing concepts such as ‘urban
regeneration’ or ‘place-making’ is that such concepts have often tended
to limit the focus of analysis to the local scale (a particular district or
community, etc.). However, as existing theory on the geography of the
cultural economy has pointed out, culture production is often embedded
within complex networked, interpersonal relations that can stretch
beyond a particular place. Power and Scott (2004) have also previously
argued that events and locational connections are critical for under-
standing strategies that rely on events for development. In this paper, we
argue that by reorienting the analytical focus to a different, broader
scale (in our case, the national scale), we may reveal hidden processes
shaping the connection between cultural events and the city. More
specically, this research has identied China’s deteriorating uneven
geography as an important factor that has inuenced the location of
lmmaking-related activities. New developments taking place in
China’s more developed coastal metropolises may lead to the creation of
new urban milieus in distant inland regions such as the Tibetan Plateau.
Lastly, following the previous proposition, we argue that contexts
matter and should be used to improve theories (as opposed to being seen
as something negligible and marginal). In our eldwork in Xining and
Beijing, we had difculty nding traces of urban entrepreneurship. The
commitment of Beijing ofcials to strictly implement the central gov-
ernment’s lm censorship seems to us to be a departure from the
entrepreneurial city model. In Xining, local ofcials are not interested in
creating a local lm to promote the place, nor in developing a local lm
industry. The question posed there was: How can FIFF help Xining win a
place in the central government’s developmental programs (which are
redistributive by nature)? We concluded that while the concept of urban
entrepreneurship has good explanatory potential, it is problematic to
assume that all cities that have embraced event hosting can be described
as ‘entrepreneurial’, ‘post-industrial’ or ‘neoliberal’. Epistemologically,
then, this paper echoes Robinson and Roy’s (2016) call to be sensitive to
the geography of urban theory production. We contend that urban
theory needs to be built from the ground up. This means that
conceptualisation should start by dealing with muddy realities.
3. Methodology
Due to the exploratory nature of the theoretical propositions un-
derpinning this study, which focus on the relationship between cultural
events and cities and place emphasis on a particular geographical
context, the research adopts a case study approach (Yin, 2018). A close
examination of the FIFF case is warranted because the unique aspects of
FIFF’s development are closely related to the questions posed by the
study. For example, FIFF moved from Beijing to Xining. This provides an
empirical basis for understanding the impact of geographical change on
cultural events. It is more informative to observe the inuence of cul-
tural events on the city from the FIFF, which has been running for over a
decade than many other Chinese lm festivals that were founded around
the same time but have already closed.
Data for the case study was collected through eldwork and sec-
ondary sources. The rst author was offered an internship by the FIFF
Committee, which allowed the rst author to observe the festival in a
participatory manner. Specically, the rst author spent two months in
Beijing assisting with the preparations for FIFF 2021 and one month
assisting with its implementation. The lack of publicly available and
validated data on lm festivals has always been a barrier to research on
lm festivals (Loist, 2016). As an intern, the author was able to gather
information about the festival from a qualitative and insightful
perspective. In addition to receiving permission from the organisers to
access the festival’s internal archives, it was easier to gain the trust of
others and engage in more in-depth conversations with lmmakers,
volunteers, and lmgoers. After the eldwork, additional information
was gathered from news reports, policy strategies and other secondary
sources to develop a more structured understanding of the Chinese lm
industry and Xining’s urban development.
4. From Beijing to Xining: The migration of the FIFF toward
China’s Wild West
While the charming sceneries boost its local tourist industry, the rise of the
new cultural forces and the city’s unrestrained nature enhance it wide
appeal The emergence of lm festival makes Xining another centre for
cinema alongside Beijing and Shanghai.
The 13th FIFF Handbook, 2019, p. 290
Alongside the thriving Chinese box ofce market, China’s lm fes-
tivals have grown over the past decade. Between 2013 and 2019,
China’s box ofce market expanded from $3.547 billion to $9.212
billion, and its share of the global box ofce market rose from 9.88% to
21.78% (China Film Association, 2021). Film festivals are held
throughout China, from cosmopolitan cities such as Beijing and
Shanghai to unexpected places like Xining in the remote Qinghai prov-
ince and the ancient city of Pingyao in Shanxi province. The history of
lm festivals in China is short. The rst Changchun Film Festival,
opened in Changchun, Jilin, in September 1992, and the rst Golden
Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival was held in Guilin, Guangxi,
in November of the same year; they are the earliest lm festivals in
China since 1949. Two years later, in 1994, the rst Shanghai Interna-
tional Film Festival (SIFF) started, and the rst Cross-Strait and Hong
Kong Film Festival (discontinued now) took place in Zhuhai, Guang-
dong. After 2000, in addition to lm festivals initiated and supported by
governments, such as the Beijing International Film Festival (BJIFF,
founded in 2011) and the Hainan Island International Film Festival
(HIIFF, founded in 2018), unofcial lm festivals have also emerged,
including the China Independent Film Festival (CIFF, founded in 2003 in
Nanjing, now discontinued) and the Chinese College Students Film
Festival – the predecessor of the FIFF, the case studied in this article.
FIFF is unique in China’s lm industry. In the words of independent
lmmaker Li Guiming, ‘FIFF gives people who do not come from a
H. Wang and S.-y. Kao
City, Culture and Society 32 (2023) 100506
4
professional background the condence and possibility to make lms’
(Wang, 2020: p. 39). FIFF only accepts entries that are one of the di-
rector’s rst three lms. This rule creates a friendly environment for
lmmakers at the beginning of their careers. Early-career lmmakers are
drawn to the FIFF for its reputation of delivering promising, creative
lm directors. The list of successful directors who have once taken part
in the FIFF is long and growing: Hu Bo (An Elephant Sitting Still, 2018),
Wang Jiuliang (Plastic China, 2016), Wen Muye (Dying to Survive, 2018),
Xin Yukun (The Cofn in the Mountain, 2014), Zhang Dalei (The Summer
Is Gone, 2016).
3
In addition to holding lm competitions, FIFF has
extended its reach into the entire lm industry chain, helping young
lmmakers with everything from lm production to lm distribution
and marketing. For example, the Training Camp, which began in 2011,
features instruction by leading directors or producers such as B´
ela Tarr,
Na Hong-jin and Tsai Ming-Liang, and the elected lmmakers are ex-
pected to complete short lms within ten days of the lm festival.
Likewise, to support the distribution of completed feature lms in the
market, FIFF started the industry screening programme in 2017, and
lm companies and organisations can converse with eligible lms and
their makers directly. For all these reasons, FIFF has developed a repu-
tation as being a must-attend event among young Chinese lmmakers.
Many even regarded FIFF as the ‘utopia’ for contemporary Chinese
cinema (Chen & Wei, 2016; Ge, 2017; Liu et al., 2021).
FIFF would not have developed such a distinctive reputation – as
young Chinese lmmakers’ ‘utopia’ – if it did not relocate to the less-
developed inland city of Xining. FIFF was founded in 2006 in Beijing
to discover and nurture potential lmmakers. It is not difcult to un-
derstand why Beijing was the festival’s birthplace: the capital city has
the nation’s best lm schools, some of the largest lm production
companies and a mature audience willing to spend money and time on
good lms.
4
However, in 2011, the festival moved to the city of Xining
and renamed itself FIFF. According to Teng (2018), FIFF’s Committee
refused other cities’ invitation proposals because they did not follow
their visions for holding a lm festival. It is argued here that the main
concern behind the relocation was Beijing’s municipal government’s
increasingly stringent regulations on lms, which made the public
screening of young directors’ lms – many of which would touch upon
sensitive topics intentionally or unintentionally – quite difcult.
The late-2000s, as scholars in China studies have discussed, wit-
nessed profound transformations in urban China’s political economy.
The nancial crisis, the slowdown of China’s export-oriented growth
and unregulated urban expansion led to widespread social discontent
and conicts. In response, the central government has emphasised ‘so-
cial stability’ as one of the primary goals for social development. This is
evident in the case of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The mega-event
associated with national prestige was expected to pacify existing
discontent and maintain social stability (Shin, 2012; Shin & Li, 2013).
Similarly, in the lm industry, based on censorship laws that have been
implemented, such as Provisions on the Archival Filing of Film Scripts
(Abstracts) and the Administration of Films 2006, a new regulation, Notice
of State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television on the Reafrmation
of Film Censorship Principles 2008, was issued in March of 2008, which
repeatedly stressed that content that might ‘disturb social order and
undermine social stability’ is not permitted.
5
The relocation of FIFF is thought to have been directly inuenced
because of a lm that was thought to violate the above-mentioned law.
The lm, Guangrongde Fennu (2006), narrates how discontent villagers
engage in disputes with local bullies and their powerful families. The
lm won the ‘Asian New Talent Special Jury Award’ and ‘College Stu-
dents’ Favourite Film’ at the 2006 Shanghai International Film Festival.
However, three years later, in 2009, after awarding ‘College Students’
Favourite Film’ to this lm, the Chinese College Students Film Festival
was suspended by the Beijing municipal government as the lm, in their
opinion, had political overtones. The pressure from the government
after the incident forced FIFF’s Committee to look for a preferable
location outside Beijing; even so, the ofcial website of FIFF states that
the suspension was ‘a pivotal moment in the festival’s history’. It can
thus be suggested that, while the suspension decided the festival’s
migration, it also indicates that adopting an uncompromising stance on
censorship deserves to be advertised, especially for a lm festival that
values independence.
A signicant factor to mention is the change of the event’s Chinese
name from yingxiang jie to ying zhan, which was made after it moved to
Xining. In Chinese, jie and zhan stand for festival and exhibition,
respectively. Lichaa (2017) suggests that the different names reect the
differences in legal status. However, such an explanation fails to note
that, according to Provisions on the Administration of Radio, Film and
Television Festivals (Exhibitions) and Program Exchange Activities 2004,
lm festivals and exhibitions have the same description in law. The
comparison between jie and zhan only relates to those sponsored or
supported by the national media regulator, namely the National Radio
and Television Administration (NRTA), that could be called lm festi-
vals, such as SIFF, BJIFF and HIIFF cited above, whereas others are
described as lm-themed exhibitions.
6
Instead of their legal status, the
distinction between Chinese cinematic events demonstrated the
differing political status.
As far as FIFF is concerned, a less privileged political position is not
necessarily bad; on the contrary, it can imply that the control of lms
and their related activities is less strict. Xining is a remote location. To
convince lmmakers that the long trip to the Tibetan plateau is worth-
while, the FIFF Committee deployed three strategies. The rst is to
include lms that have not acquired the ‘dragon seal’ in the screening
program.
7
As we noted, at the 15th FIFF, only two of the 16 shortlisted
3
Wen Muye’s Dying to Survive (2018) generated $453 million at the box of-
ce, ranked the third in the year. Hu Bo’s An Elephant Sitting Still (2018), won
‘FIPRESCI Award’ at the 68th Berlin International Film Festival, ‘Best Feature
Film’ and ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’ at Taiwan’s 55th Golden Horse Awards,
and ‘Best Film from Mainland and Taiwan’ at the 39th Hong Kong Film Awards.
Wang Jiuliang’s Plastic China (2016) was nominated for ‘Best Documentary
Film’ by the 54th Golden Horse Award and the 2017 Sundance Festival.
4
For example, Beijing is the home to most of China’s top lm schools, such as
Beijing Film Academy, The Central Academy of Drama, Communication Uni-
versity of China, and The National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts.
5
Notice of State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television on the Reafr-
mation of Film Censorship Principles 2008 was repealed in 2010 and replaced by
Notice of State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television on Further Promoting
and Improving Work Related to the Archival Filing of Film Scripts (Abstracts) and
Film Censorship 2010.
6
National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA), formerly the State
Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT, 1998–2013) and the
State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television
(SAPPRFT, 2013–2018).
7
The ‘dragon seal’ (long biao) is the seal of approval for public screening in
China, and like other opening credits, it will be shown before a lm. All the
lms screened in Chinese theatres have the ‘dragon seal’ to indicate that the
lm has been pre-reviewed and approved for screening by the local authorities
after it has been released. Even tighter, according to Article 21 of the Film In-
dustry Promotion Law 2016, only lms with the ‘dragon seal’ are allowed to
participate in lm festivals or exhibitions. Indirect censorship also exists.
H. Wang and S.-y. Kao
City, Culture and Society 32 (2023) 100506
5
feature lms screened (including documentaries) had a licence during
the lm festival.
8
Even though most Chinese cinephiles are aware of
censorship rules, the eeting disappearance of the ‘dragon seal’ allows
them to pretend that it may not exist. The second strategy has been to
shift the focus of propaganda. Still, at the 2021 FIFF, there was a cura-
tion titled ‘Cinema Rewired’ (gui cheng). In essence, this catered to the
Communist Party’s centenary in the same year, and thus, lms that
highlight a left-wing political attitude, such as Eight Thousand Li of Cloud
and Moon (1947), were selected. However, we can observe that the
name of the curation programme did not deliver messages strongly
related to the CCP but was cleverly packaged as a sheer retrospective of
Chinese cinema history. This moderate challenge is appreciated indeed,
particularly in the current climate of the Chinese lm industry, as the
authority’s inuence reaches deep into the lm industry.
9
The third strategy was to discursively construct Xining as a utopia for
lmmakers. For example, Li Ziwei, one of FIFF’s founders, once
described: ‘The air is much thinner up here (in Xining), but then that is
like the environment for our lmmakers – resources are scarce, yet there
is just enough to survive’ (Shackleton, 2018). Based on its ofcial sto-
rytelling, the artistic spirit that FIFF would like to convey is exactly
echoed by Xining’s local culture, as shown in the following account:
You can nd indigenous people here whose origin cannot be traced. Apart
from Han nationality, there are also Hui, Tibetan, and Salar. Huge in-
uence brought by Tibetan Buddhism and Muslim can be noticed in daily
life of natives. This profound inuence has been well digested by this place
and thus permeated in local people’s lives. Known for compatibility and
tolerance, Xining and FIRST chimed in easily
The 12th FIFF Handbook, 2018, p. 364
FIFF is keenly aware that people’s certain expectations of Xining can
be used to its advantage. Most tellingly, at the 2016 FIFF, screenings and
discussions took place on the shore of Qinghai Lake. The lakeside, car-
avans, camping, open-air screenings, ground seating and lms about
pilgrimages and ancient prophecies – every detail met people’s original
imagination for Xining. To clarify, apart from the above event, the
majority of FIFF’s activities, as the following part will discuss, are held
in the urban area of Xining, but this precisely strengthens the view
mentioned here, that FIFF heightens Xining’s appeal to Chinese lm-
makers by employing a modern narrative.
Unfortunately, censorship is a constant spectre in the Chinese lm
industry. The ‘dragon seal’ is looming, and Xining is no exception.
Parasite (2019), which had been announced as the closing lm of the
13th FIFF, was cancelled due to ‘technical reasons’ (Grogan, 2019). For
the same reason, Ward 11, Song Wu (2021), Smog Town (2019), Mr.
Zhang (2021) and Singing in the Wilderness (2021) were removed from
the 15th FIFF.
10
The ‘technical reasons’ are an unspoken secret; in other
words, the authority rejects the lms, either temporarily or
permanently.
This section has examined the process of moving the FIFF from
Beijing to Xining. The FIFF organisers are undoubtedly pleased with the
success of the migration. To attract lmmakers and cinephiles to Xining,
they rely on the cultural associations that Xining has with cinema, such
as freedom and imagination. In general, people tend to look for oppor-
tunities that can contribute to the development of the city in places with
a high concentration of creative facilities and services, but in the case of
the FIFF, actively seeking connections between itself and the location of
the event has proven to be more effective. It is also noted that, in this
case, governments play a crucial role in dening the relationship be-
tween place and industry. The festival moved to Xining, where a more
relaxed political environment gave it a chance to re-establish itself.
5. The role of FIFF in Xining’s urban development
Like many other municipalities in the country’s inland, western
provinces, Xining has always faced difculties securing investment
through market mechanisms. According to ofcial data, throughout the
1990s, only 0.01% of China’s foreign direct investment went to Qinghai
Province (Gaubatz, 2008, p. 185). The number rose to 0.02% in 2020,
which was still insignicant (Foreign Investment Administration
Department of the Ministry of Commerce, 2021, p. 7). For ofcials in
Xining, when it comes to securing nancial investment, a more effective
way is to take part in the various national developmental schemes
implemented from the top down by the central government to reduce
regional inequality. This is a common tool of political governance in
China. The central government develops performance indicators against
specic development targets for regional governments. Achievement of
these targets is rewarded with honorary titles, with regions receiving
nancial rewards and local ofcials receiving promotion incentives. The
awards given to Xining will be discussed later. Xining’s hosting of the
FIFF is an attempt to compete for a place in these redistributive national
development plans.
When FIFF was rst held in Xining in 2011, its main venue was in the
old city next to the Dongguan Mosque, a historical and religious land-
mark (Figs. 4 and 5). This was chosen based on two perspectives. Firstly,
according to the central government’s statement that ‘urbanisation is the
only path to modernisation’ (Party Literature Research Centre, 2017, p.
589), Xining’s main priority was urbanisation, and thereby FIFF was
organised in the area that needed to be urbanised. In addition, FIFF was
mentioned in the government’s annual work report three times from
2012 to 2014. Essential to the effort of Xining was to compete for the
title of ‘National Public Culture Service System Demonstration Zone’,
which was the project led by the central government to improve people’s
cultural needs from 2011. Since then, Xining has expanded westward
Fig. 4. After moving to Xining, FIFF moved twice, from the Central District to
the West District, and now it is held in the Haihu New District.
8
FIFF does ask lmmakers to apply for screening permission. However, at
the15th FIFF, nominated lms were announced on the 26th of June, and the
lm festival opened a month later then, on the 25th of July. That means, from
when the lms were nominated until when they were screened at the festival,
lmmakers may not have enough time to obtain screening approval. The review
application process has two steps. The rst is to obtain content approval from
the provincial administration. After this, lmmakers need to make a digital
cinema distribution master (DCDM), used by China Film Administration (CFA)
to impose the second censorship.
9
In 2018, particularly, the responsibility of lm administration taken by
SAPPRFT was transferred to the Publicity Department of the Communist Party
of China (CPCPD), which is believed to be a signal for more rigorous censorship
(Xinhua News Agency, 2018).
10
The lm Ward 11, Song Wei withdrew from the festival’s competition by
itself. However, as it happened just a few days before the lm festival, we still
believe the power of censorship is not diminished but invisible here.
H. Wang and S.-y. Kao
City, Culture and Society 32 (2023) 100506
6
gradually, with the location of the FIFF following suit. Three years later,
in 2014, FIFF was held in a newly built pedestrian street in the middle of
the city (Fig. 6). The municipal government did not cite FIFF in its pe-
riodic report between 2015 and 2016; nevertheless, since the commer-
cial street was underscored to demonstrate its efforts in developing the
service sector, FIFF functioned as a complement. The goal for repre-
sentatives of cultural services remained unchanged, but Xining’s new
campaign was directed to the highest target set by the central govern-
ment, namely the building of a ‘National Civilised City’. Therefore, it is
possible that Xining’s growth relied on development schemes, particu-
larly those that reected the central government’s intentions (Grant,
2018).
In 2012, while Haihu New District was still under construction, the
Xining government had already proposed to introduce FIFF as a stimulus
for the area (Xining Municipal People’s Government, 2012). Finally, in
2016, at the suggestion of the Xining government, FIFF moved to the
Haihu New District, a new development area ‘serving as a window to
display the city and create a high-quality urban space’ (Qu & Li, 2007).
Located in the western part of Xining, Haihu New District has public
facilities, including the Qinghai Grand Theatre, Qinghai Science and
Technology Museum, Qinghai Sports Centre and several shopping
complexes such as Tangdao 637, Wanda Plaza and Wangfujing Mall.
There is also a ve-star luxury hotel and four multi-screen cinemas.
Combining public structures and commercial spaces is a common
method for creating new districts in China. According to the local ofcial
newspaper, ‘Haihu New District is evidently showing the prosperity of
Xining’ (Zhang, 2018).
These facilities, in some ways, meet FIFF’s various requirements.
Films were screened in three of the four cinemas during the eight-day
event; attendees could move quickly between them as they are all
within 5–10 min’ walking distance. Celebrity directors and actors stayed
in one of the only two ve-star hotels in the province, the French hotel
chain Sotel, which offers the same quality of food and wine as in Bei-
jing and Shanghai. At the Tangdao 637 shopping precinct, a bookshop
named Geometry hosted small seminars with directors or jury members
every day; the bars were rented daily for parties to welcome nalist
lmmakers, the press, and other guests, serving the wine sponsored by
the Hennessy group. In addition, unlike the halal-based dining in the old
city, the new district is occupied by diverse food chains, such as Burger
King and China’s famous hot pot brand Haidilao. In terms of consumer
diversity, Xining offers a similar experience to the big cities of eastern
China, if not for the nearby mountains and the occasional passer-by in
ethnic dress.
Xining is believed to have beneted from the presence of FIFF. Over
the course of the festival, a large screen was installed in the middle of the
commercial block. As well as showing nominated lms at night, the
screen acted as a stage, hosting meet-and-greets with lm stars and live
performances. While FIFF only lasts a few days in the summer, the local
newspaper specically mentioned the open-air activities to explain why
the area could be recognised as a ‘National Night Culture Tourism and
Consumption Cluster’, one of the rst in the country (Wu, 2021). FIFF
has been brought to the attention of Xining’s government again in 2019.
Xining intends to use the strong brand recognition attributed to the FIFF
to compete for the title ‘National Culture Tourism Consumption Pilot
City’ in 2020 (Xining Municipal People’s Government, 2021).
6. Conclusion
As culture has been identied as playing a critical role in economic
development, the study of cultural events has gained increasing atten-
tion accordingly. Many local governments have developed a strategy
based on cultural events to generate advantages (e.g., reputation, di-
versity) and opportunities to enhance the attractiveness of a particular
area. However, while many local governments are actively pursuing this
development strategy, there still exist disputes regarding the priority of
organising cultural events within different cities.
Our study of FIFF contributes to the ongoing discussion on why and
how certain cultural events can be held in particular cities and exert an
impact. According to our ndings in this study, the creative class plays a
signicant agency role that needs to be fully considered. In fact, many
people visit host cities for the purpose of attending cultural events,
which is why the creative class is crucial, as they are responsible for
organising such events. As demonstrated in the case of FIFF, it is FIFF’s
organisers who determine the migration of the lm festival and identify
and understand why Xining is favourable to the festival. The process
challenges conventional perceptions of cultural events and cities, which
are typically viewed through the lens of the city. Cultural events are
inherently productive and lead to cultural production, rather than
merely reconguring urban spaces through cultural consumption. A
distinct geographical context such as Xining is more important to FIFF
because it offers more opportunities for networking and the exchange of
ideas, both of which are essential to the production of quality lms.
Accordingly, the fact that Xining consumes less cinema than Beijing
during FIFF is not a major concern.
This study sheds light on the geographical dimension of cultural
events. In addition to the creative class and its production network, this
geography has also been shaped by different levels of government. Both
the central and local governments have inuenced FIFF in various ways.
Although Xining is not a post-industrial city from an economic
perspective, the local government can still take advantage of FIFF. This
process illustrates that looking beyond neoliberalism’s accumulative
logic is necessary; instead, a more contextualised, open-ended
Fig. 5. One of the cinemas offered screenings at the 7th FIFF in 2013 (Photo
courtesy of FIFF Committee).
Fig. 6. From 2014 to 2015, FIFF was held in a newly built pedestrian street
(Photo courtesy of FIFF Committee).
H. Wang and S.-y. Kao
City, Culture and Society 32 (2023) 100506
7
interpretation is always called for when understanding the connection
between cultural events and the city.
Funding
This work was supported by Postgraduate Research Scholarship
[grant number: PGRSB200602], Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
Disclosure statement
No potential conict of interest was reported by the author(s).
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Hui Wang: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing
– original draft, preparation, Writing – review & editing, Funding
acquisition. Shih-yang Kao: Conceptualization, Writing – original draft,
Writing – review & editing.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Dr. Yiwen Wang and the two anonymous
reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions on our
original manuscript. We have also benetted from conversations with
Dr. Ying-fen Chen and Dr. Shuwei Tsai during the 2022 IGU Interna-
tional Congress. Lastly, we received helpful language supports by Dr.
Trevor Mahy at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University.
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