CHINA: The Shanghai International Film Festival looks like a film festival anywhere. Starlets in spangled dresses, black-clad directors and Armani-suited producers throng the plush hotels of downtown Shanghai, seeing and being seen as the paparazzi snap away merrily.
Thousands gathered at the Grand Theatre to gawk at the glitterati walking up the red carpet, including action star Jackie Chan and producer Harvey Weinstein, as well as local stars like Farewell, My Concubine director Chen Kaige.
However, the open, international atmosphere of the film festival masks a deeper problem in Chinese film - what to do about censorship.
The Chinese government is keen to keep a tight grip on public morals and wants to ensure pernicious foreign influences do not destabilise public order and undermine the single-party rule of the Communist Party.
Political dissent is not allowed and artistic freedom is extremely limited. This has had a huge impact on personal freedom in China, particularly in the way the internet is policed, but cinema has suffered acutely.
The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television limits the number of foreign films allowed in China to about 20 a year. Of the hundreds of movies made in China every year, only 20 per cent will make it to the cinema here, with the rest consigned directly to pirate DVD distribution or shown only at foreign film festivals.
The kind of movies the Chinese government likes tends to be sweeping epics with long-haired swordsmen fighting lithe women armed with daggers.
Zhang Yimou's Hero is the most successful Chinese movie ever, but within the stunning kung fu action and beautiful visual effects is an explicit message of sacrifice of oneself to a larger purpose - in the case of the film's nameless hero, the empire.
Hero annoyed many film-makers in China because they believe Zhang has sold out on the original counter-culture credentials which earned him praise abroad but saw his films banned in China. Film-makers in China have to deal with a bewildering array of censorship laws and it's a wonder Zhang ever made it out in the first place.
One director, Tian Zhuangzhuang, was banned from making films after his controversial political drama Blue Kite won international acclaim back in 1993.
Jia Zhangke is one of China's most promising young directors. His first film, Xiao Wu, is a gritty realist film about a pickpocket in his home province of Shanxi. The follow-up, Platform, is a poetic look at the process of change in China, while Unknown Pleasures is a remarkable take on modernisation. None of these was shown in China but in a sign that things may be changing, his most recent film, The World, has made it to Chinese cinemas.
"Censorship still exists in China and obviously as a director it's painful not to have my movies shown in cinemas," Jia says, on the fringes of the opening night reception. He is delighted that The World made it on to the screens in his home country.
"What makes me happy is that I didn't have to change my films to fit society, but instead that society has changed. I hope this will continue."
Political pressures come from unlikely sources. Young director Liang Shan's prize-winning film Father examines the relationship between a father and a son.
"That's all it's about, but it's been forced underground because people read it as a political allegory. It's ironic, really," Liang says. "The censorship has always been very severe, but it's getting a little bit more flexible now, about 20 or 30 per cent more flexible now. We get used to the restrictions and we work within the limits. You play with the restrictions and maybe you are lucky."
There was a lot of fuss last year when the government changed the rules so that film-makers no longer have to wait for their scripts to be approved by the censors but instead can submit an outline, which is dealt with much more quickly. However, in real terms this made little difference.
Films are censored by panels of large groups of people from incredibly diverse interest groups representing all sectors of society before they are passed .
For the eight days of the Shanghai film fest, the limit on foreign movies was relaxed, meaning filmgoers could watch a range of films from abroad - 160 out of the 200 films shown were foreign. This made for a rather bizarre programme. Alongside the usual arthouse foreign fare that makes up the main diet at a film festival, Chinese filmgoers could watch mainstream, just past their sell-by date movies like Collateral, Alien vs Predator and Meet the Fokkers on the big screen.
One of the themes of the festival was a celebration of 100 years of Chinese cinema and organisers showed a stirring film which highlighted the many great films made during the century of Chinese film. Hong Kong and Taiwanese films were also included, alongside the propaganda classics of the period after the revolution of 1949 when the Communists took over.
For the record, the first Chinese movie was shot in 1905 and was called Ding Jun Shan. China's first film was composed of scenes from Beijing Opera - a subject unlikely to sow seeds of political dissent.