'Operation Red Sea' nominated for college film festival awards

On the heels of receiving a nomination for the Tiantan Award, the top honor of the Beijing International Film Festival, Operation Red Sea has again won favor from a younger jury of the 25th Beijing College Student Film Festival. 

The annual festival for Chinese young people recently announced Operation Red Sea alongside other 33 movies to be short listed for its top awards.

The film is loosely based on the People's Liberation Army Navy's evacuation of nearly 600 Chinese citizens and about 220 foreigners from war-torn Yemen in 2015 and recently soared to be the second highest-grossing film ever in China.

Its powerful rivals include Wu Jing's Chinese Special Forces-themed hit, Wolf Warrior 2, and Feng Xiaogang's nostalgic feature, Youth.

The nods are short listed from nearly 300 submissions. About 4,000 films and approximately 600 scripts -- all created by young talent -- are submitted for other awards set for college students.

The Beijing college student festival, held by Beijing Normal University, began April 14 and runs to May 6 in 25 at universities across China.

The Lost Land is the opening film of this festival. After its screening at the opening ceremony on Sunday, award-winning actress Siqin Gaowa and six other members of the film's cast and crew held talks and answered questions from the audience.

The film, which recounts a tragic story set in China in the 1930s, will hit domestic theatres on May 18.

Over the past 25 years, 6,566 domestic films were presented at the festival, among which 377 won awards.

Zhou Zuoyu, vice-president of Beijing Normal University, said the festival has become an important channel for promoting outstanding Chinese movies, and also serves as a platform for dialogues between filmmakers, researchers and fans, as well as a cradle for rising talents in the film industry.