Last Saturday China’s independent film community faced their latest setback when the Beijing Independent Film Festival was forced to cancel its public screenings upon pressure from local authorities. This was the third consecutive cancellation of a festival sponsored by the Li Xianting Film Fund, which has been organizing independent film screenings in Beijing for over a decade.
Since its inception, the Film Fund’s activities have faced scrutiny from government officials, as public film exhibitions in China are typically required to pass approval from the State Administration for Radio, Film and Television (SARFT). But with the tacit, unofficial approval of local authorities, the Film Fund was allowed to operate uninterrupted for its first seven years.