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No premiere requirement
A film having screened elsewhere does not make it less worth taking seriously here. We are interested in the work, not in whether it is untouched.
CNDF
About the Festival
A Chinese-language new director festival with no entry fee and no premiere requirement. Small in scale, consistently international in the people it asks to judge. Selected filmmakers are brought to the event; the deliberations are made public.
Mission
The festival exists to honour documentary authors who go their own way and go there with compassion — for their deep attention to the human world, and for new work that takes real artistic risks.
The Chinese New Director Festival (CNDF, first reported as the Chinese New Director Documentary Competition / CDND) was founded in 2022. It calls for documentaries of sixty minutes or less from Chinese-language filmmakers anywhere in the world, and charges no entry fee.
It is a small festival with a consistently international bench. The director of the Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema, a professor of film studies at King’s College London, the artistic director of the Brussels Millenium festival, Academy voters, the coordinator of the documentary workshop at Berlinale Talents and a film scholar from USC have all sat at this table. The preliminary panels have drawn on readers in France, Serbia, India and China.
The first edition selected thirteen finalists from 688 entries, and the jury chose not to award conventional places at all, creating an Extraordinary Award instead. The second edition, in 2025, was staged in Shitang, Zhejiang, with the Donghai International Documentary Masterclass Camp, with twelve finalists out of 502 entries.
Travel and accommodation for selected filmmakers are covered by the executive committee, who are invited to the ceremony and the workshops. Selected films may be put forward to the Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema and the Brussels Millenium Documentary Film Festival — the route by which Will You Look At Me and 《寂静之歌》 travelled out of the first edition.
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Three principles
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Sixty minutes or under
A rule unchanged since the first edition. Shorts and mid-length work compete on the same stage: a thirteen-minute film and a sixty-minute film are weighed by the same jury against the same standard.
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Deliberations made public
The executive committee publishes the deliberations in text or on video. Jurors’ nominations, disagreements and reservations appear alongside the citations — including the films they believe were missed.
History
2022
2022 · 1st Edition
The first edition called for entries from Chinese-language filmmakers worldwide and received 688 films. Rather than award conventional places, the jury created an Extraordinary Award and gave it to three authors of singular independence and force.
2025
2025 · 2nd Edition
The second edition was staged together with the Donghai International Documentary Masterclass Camp in Shitang, Zhejiang — a stone fishing town on the East China Sea known as “the Notre-Dame of the East”. Twelve of 502 entries reached the final round, and five jurors decided the outcome after four hours of debate.
Once selected
01
To be there
Selected filmmakers are invited to the ceremony and the workshops, with travel and lodging covered by the executive committee.
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To hear the jury
Nominations, disagreements and reservations are published in text or on video — including the films the jury believed were missed.
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To travel on
Selected films may be put forward to the Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema and the Brussels Millenium Documentary Film Festival.
How judging works
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The panel is named first
The final jury, the preliminary committee and the advisers are published before the call opens. Filmmakers know who will watch before they send the work.
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Two distinct rounds
The preliminary committee draws the finalists from the full entry. The final jury then decides the awards by discussion and vote. The executive committee does not intervene.
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The process is public
Deliberations may run in the room and online at once. When they close, the citations and the dissenting notes are prepared for publication.
Partners
Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinema (FICA)
Founding partner · receives films put forward by the festival
Brussels Millenium Documentary Film Festival
Founding partner · receives films put forward by the festival
Donghai International Documentary Masterclass Camp
2025 co-host · Shitang, Zhejiang
Take part
Send a film, or write first
The 3rd edition has not opened yet. The rules and the submissions address are on the Submit page; screenings, partnerships and press go through Contact.