The Shanghai International Film Festival has announced its main competition lineup for the Golden Goblet Awards, with all 12 selected titles entering as world premieres. The Shanghai Film Festival 2026 runs June 12–21, drawing from a record 4,100 submissions across 125 countries and regions.
Shanghai Film Festival 2026 main competition
All 12 main competition films are world premieres, spanning 15 countries and territories. Three Chinese-language productions are among them, all from emerging directors: Zhong Kaifeng‘s Atlantic Rhapsody, Liu Xiaoyang‘s The Great Skull, and Frankie Tam Gong-Yuen‘s Secret in the Box, a mainland–Hong Kong co-production.
Atlantic Rhapsody blends drama, comedy, and fantasy around a supermarket clerk who starts hearing voices after accidentally cooking a shark. The Great Skull, a dark comedy starring Wen Qi, Ni Hongjie, and Yu Entai, follows a young woman and her mother dealing with a funeral committee her father arranged before his sudden death. Secret in the Box, led by Zhang Songwen, Patrick Tam, and Isabella Leong, draws from Hong Kong’s 1970s “Box Murder Case,” following a convicted man who protests his innocence for decades alongside the young investigator who keeps digging.
Europe holds most of the remaining slots. Germany enters two films: Josef Brandl‘s Superbuhei and Susanne Heinrich‘s The Miserable Mother, the latter sharing its premiere with the Munich International Film Festival. The section also includes Reis Çelik‘s Turkey–Germany co-production Night of Blindness, Nicolás Rincón Gille‘s Belgian Iluminada, and Daniil Merkulov‘s Russian Sea Sons, plus entries from Brazil, Morocco, Canada, and Indonesia.
The all-premiere format is a deliberate choice. The Shanghai Film Festival 2026 positions itself as a launchpad for new work rather than a downstream stop for prestige titles already circulating on the international circuit.
Tony Leung chairs the jury
Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai presides over the seven-member main competition jury. The panel includes Chinese director Guan Hu, whose Black Dog won Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2024; Georgian filmmaker Déa Kulumbegashvili; Mexican director Fernanda Valadez; Chinese actress Xin Zhilei, named best actress at Venice in 2025; Tunisian producer Dora Bouchoucha; and Kyrgyz director Aktan Arym Kubat.
The festival opens June 12 with Afterpiece, a Hong Kong psychological drama produced by Derek Yee and directed by first-time feature filmmaker Keane T.K. Wong. The film stars Stephen Fung as a stage director who becomes dangerously entangled with a young actress during casting. It grew from the Hong Kong government’s Directors’ Succession Scheme.
Asian New Talent and other sections
The Asian New Talent section, reserved for debut and second features by Asian filmmakers, presents 12 films this year. All but one are world premieres: Thai director Sompot Chidgasornpongse‘s 9 Temples to Heaven had already debuted at Cannes in May. Anthony Chen, whose Ilo Ilo won the Cannes Camera d’Or in 2013, chairs the section’s jury.
The documentary and animation competitions each present five titles. Geeta Gandbhir chairs the documentary jury, and Will Becher leads the animation panel. Across all sections, the Shanghai Film Festival 2026 is running 49 competitive titles in total.