Here we are. In a few hours the awards ceremony will take place. Golden Panda Awards 2025. From September 12th to 13th, Chengdu will host the second edition of the prestigious international award. This event aims to bring together cultures, arts, and expressive languages from around the world.
All set for the 2025 Golden Panda Awards: the event's three main moments and the nominations
During a press conference in Beijing, the organizers described the show as a “an inclusive cultural festival open to ideas”, underlining the international vocation of this edition. The program will be structured around three main moments: an international cultural forum, several parallel thematic sessions and, of course, the gala evening dedicated to the awards ceremony, renamed Golden Panda Night. In total, the following will be awarded: 27 awards in five categories: cinema, television fiction, documentary, animation and a special jury prize.
Second Hu Yun, member of the organizing committee, this year the festival "will be more international, more complete and more professional than ever." The numbers confirm this ambition: over 5,000 applications, of which almost three-quarters from abroad, representing 126 countries and regions. The jury will be presided over by the famous director Chen Kaige, joined by leading figures from the international film scene. "After more than forty years of experience in the industry," he stated, "I consider it an honor to lead the jury for this edition. We look forward to meeting again in Chengdu in September to experience this great event together.".
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Alongside the awards, the festival will offer a series of collateral initiatives, including the global short video competition “Face to Face with Pandas”, which celebrates nature and ecology and has already collected more than 65,000 participants from 40 countries. The calendar of special screenings is also highly anticipated. From September 1st to 30th, in addition to 20,000 communities in Sichuan They will host public screenings with the aim, the organizers explain, of transforming cinema into a collective ritual of this "golden autumn.".
Golden Panda, launched in 2023 with great success, aims to consolidate Chengdu and Sichuan as new crossroads of international cinema. As a testament to the global scope of the event, prominent guests are expected, such as the French director Vincent Perez, Hussein Fahmy, president of the Cairo International Film Festival, and the Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan. The final touch of suggestion comes from the promotional film “Encounter”, previewed especially for this edition. A taste of what promises to be a celebration of cinema capable of uniting peoples and cultures under the banner of the golden panda.