Tran Anh Hung to head Golden Goblet jury panel

The 26th Shanghai International Film Festival committee announced last week that Vietnamese French director and scriptwriter Tran Anh Hung will serve as the jury president of the festival’s Golden Goblet Awards this year.

Tran, who won the Best Director Award at the 76th Cannes Film Festival in 2023 for the film “The Taste of Things,” is renowned for blending the expressions of Eastern and Western cultures in his works, with sensitivity, delicacy, and a romantic style, according to the committee.

After receiving Shanghai’s invitation, Tran expressed his hopes to discuss the development of film as an art form with other judges and movie buffs in China at the festival.

Born in Vietnam and living in France since 1975, Tran studied filmmaking in Paris at l’École Nationale Louis Lumière from 1985 to 1987. His feature directorial debut “The Scent of Green Papaya” (1992) won him an international reputation by receiving the Award of the Youth French Film and the Golden Camera Award at the 46th Cannes Film Festival and the Best First Film Award at the 19th Cesar Awards. The film was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

His second feature film “Cyclo” (1995), starring Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai, is the gritty story of a struggling cyclo driver navigating the underworld of Ho Chi Minh City. The film won the Golden Lion Award for the Best Film at the 52nd Venice International Film Festival.

Tran has a strong connection with the Shanghai International Film Festival. In June 2011, he served as a judge for the main competition unit of the 14th Shanghai International Film Festival and held a press conference for his film “Norwegian Wood” during the festival.

The 26th Shanghai International Film Festival will be held from June 14 to 23. (Xinhua)