SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 18 (Xinhua) -- The Sixth San Francisco International New Concept Film Festival (SFINCFF) was launched here Friday as several selected award-winning documentaries were screened at the San Francisco Public Library downtown.
More than 100 films and documentaries from over 20 countries and regions have been entered into this year's competition, and 50 entries were selected for the final round, said SFINCFF founder and chairperson Joanna Zhang.
"We've received applications from movie producers from the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Japan, China, Australia, South Korea and even Malta. A lot of people showed great interest in the film festival," she told Xinhua.
The festival offers a platform for all film lovers, professional filmmakers and film/media students to tap their potential talent in film making by employing new and innovative technologies and skills, Zhang said.
"We encourage new filmmakers, especially young and first-time filmmakers, to showcase their originality and new ideas in their productions submitted to the film judge committee," she added.
"It's a modest festival done on a very small budget, but we always get interesting films from [some] countries," said Keith Howell, a member of the judging committee.
He noted that the festival emphasized not only innovation in the substance of films, but also in the means of expression.
"In fact, it's in the way of expression that is more likely to be original than in the content," Howell said, referring to some new technologies, such as the use of drones in present-day movie production, which offers the audience a panoramic view of certain events in documentaries.
A few feature films produced by Chinese producers, including "Iron Man Wang Jin Xi" and the Chinese-Cambodian co-production "Cambodian Love Story," were awarded the title of Best Feature Film.
An awards ceremony will be held on Oct. 27 at the San Francisco War Memorial Herbst Theater.
