This weekend the Tudou Video Festival 2011 took place in Beijing. Or to be precise, about a 45 minute drive from Beijing on the grounds of the Goose and Duck Ranch. In the days that I still lived in Beijing (until early 2003) I had been to the Goose & Duck a couple of times (it was still called Goose & Duck Farm at that time), but the place has grown quite a bit since then.
I drove to the Video Festival straight off a plane from Amsterdam and started with a cold beer with Gary at lunch. Not the smartest way to avoid a jet lag, but you only live once right? In the afternoon I watched some of the pitches that companies did for their films, walked around a bit in the resort and eventually even slept for almost an hour. I normally try to avoid sleeping during the day after a flight, but after a pretty hectic schedule in The Netherlands without much sleep and with more than enough alcohol, I really needed to close my eyes for a while. I felt great after I got up and then spent the rest of the afternoon in the sun next to the river with my Kindle. Very enjoyable!
After an early dinner we went to the huge tent that had been set up for the 1000+ guests that attended the event (Tudou had chartered a large number of buses to get the people to and back from the Huairou countryside). We had excellent seats and had a good time during the festival. As I wrote in other blog posts about the past Video Festivals I am every year again surprised about the high quality of the films. Most of the finalists are as good as professionally produced content and that’s of course why a lot of people show up: this is THE place in China for talent scouting! Even people from the Sundance Festival attended this year’s event, and 10 of the finalists of the Tudou Video Festival will now compete in the Sundance Festival as well.
After the show was over there was a great after party with wine, beers, and even cognac, lots of food, several shows on an improvised stage, live music and several bonfires. I had a great time talking to many old and new friends. A nice ending of an interesting day!
See all the winners of the Tudou Video Festival here on Tudou: http://tdvf2011.tudou.com/
Sorry for the relatively low quality pictures: I took them with my iPhone and then uploaded them at the lowest quality, like I normally do when I am abroad. Except that I was of course back in China already