Those darned independent filmmakers just can’t get enough of making movies in Shanghai. This time there is another short film competition underway by MeiWenTi Productions. The new contest dubbed “Contest 2.0″ will be the biggest we have seen yet.

With 8 teams totaling 45 people, this time it is serious. There are filmmaking workshops organized to help amateur filmmakers make professional films. Juan Vargas, organizer, and director and producer in MeiWenTi Productions, has recruited experts in production, lighting, sound, directing, camerawork and editing. These experts will voice their experience to the teams to help promote the professionalism of making films. There are some local as well as foreign experts on the panel.

The films will be shot between February 15th and March 3rd, with the awards ceremony being on March 11. You may ask why the shooting is between such specific dates? Well, as in the last film competition, there will be 4 specific elements that must be included in the film for it to qualify.

In the last contest the requirements were:

1. That one of the characters is “allergic” to gravity
2. One of the characters has a nervous twitch
3. There must be a scene with an elevator
4. An unhappy ending.

It remains to be seen what wacky and innovative stuff they come up with for this contest. This time the contest is a bit more lenient, as before the contestants had simply one week to shoot, edit and produce the film.

MeiWenTi productions describes their unique position:

Meiwenti Productions goal is to become a key player in the revival of Shanghai’s film industry.  To do this, we believe that the first step is to get the city’s filmmakers on their toes! 

We will see how good the filmmakers are on their toes in this next contest. Planetkarl will be sure to bring you more updates closer to March 11, so you can come and see what Shanghai filmmakers have to offer.