The first Mint Chinese Film Festival was well received in Keswick last week.
More than 200 people participated in the Chinese New Year film extravaganza at the Alhambra Cinema, founded and organised by women, and focused primarily on films by women, and about women’s experiences.
Of the 146 pass holders, 130 were Chinese participants who had travelled from Edinburgh, Leeds, London, York, Durham, St Andrews and Southampton.
There were more than 900 admissions to the 18 events and 53 people participated in the Chinese craft session put on by the Lancaster Confucius Institute at Keswick Museum, including a group of French exchange students from Rennes.
“Yixiang Shirley Lin, lead curator and co-founder of the festival, is a force of nature,” said Carol Rennie, co-owner of the Alhambra Cinema. “She is only 23 years old, and just graduated from the University of Edinburgh last year, but this is the third film festival she has curated, and she brought together a fantastic team of fellow organisers online, who only met each other in person for the first time here in Keswick.”
Co-curator Xiyun Simyun Li, who travelled from Amsterdam for the event, said: “I loved the small-town atmosphere in Keswick – it reminded me of Cannes – participants didn’t get lost once they stepped outside the venue, they could identify each other in the streets, and meet and mix in all the lovely cafes and shops close to the cinema.”
Many of the participants joined a guided walk from the cinema to the lake, with a significant number expressing an interest in returning to explore the area further.
“For me, this is part of a drive for sustainable tourism in the Lake District,” said Carol. “The Keswick Tourist Association, which generously sponsored our event, is keen to attract Chinese visitors.
“How much better to tap into the 200,000 Chinese students already in the UK, rather than seek to attract them from abroad.
“Our event brought over 300 overnight stays to Keswick this weekend, with perhaps three or four cars maximum: our participants primarily used public transport to get here – though we did put on two packed coaches to replace the trains derailed by the strikes!”
Plans are already being made for next year’s event, which the organisers hope to extend to include the Theatre by the Lake and Rheged.
Like this year, the event will feature new films, short film selections, documentaries and discussion panels, but if the space and additional partners allow, might also include art exhibitions and live performances.
“The Mint Festival is also a wonderful opportunity to open a window to the richness and depth of Chinese culture,” said Carol, who speaks Mandarin and has a PhD in Chinese Literature.
“Another strand we are considering, to attract more non-Chinese audiences, is to showcase some of the most internationally acclaimed films by Chinese and Taiwanese filmmakers over the last century: there are many of them that just must be seen on the big screen, including my personal favourites, In the Mood For Love by Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai, and Yi Yi, by Taiwanese director Edward Yang – simply astounding filmmaking.
“If we’re lucky, we might find that some of the new work we showcase at the Mint Festival will be from directors that go on to be global stars,” said Carol. “The winner of our short film competition this year, from over 400 submissions, was Zhizi Hao, with a delightfully touching 20-minute feature, A Firecracker Story, featuring an eight-year-old boy on the search for firecrackers to celebrate Chinese New Year, after the health-and-safety ban on these in southern China.
“We were lucky enough to have Zhizi with us in person at the festival – amazingly, he has a friend whose parents live in Keswick, so he stayed with them! What a small world!”
