Bi Gan to Receive Honorary Award at 25th Las Palmas Festival
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Bi Gan will receive an Honorary Golden Lady Harimaguada at the 25th Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival, with festival director Luis Miranda calling him "one of the most original and relevant filmmakers of the last decade."
- The festival is hosting a six-film retrospective titled "Bi Gan Blues," spanning "Kaili Blues," "Long Day's Journey Into Night," "Resurrection," and shorts "The Poet and Singer," "A Short Story" and "Secret Goldfish" — nodding to the debut that won the festival's top prize in 2016.
- Bi will appear on April 29 at Cine Yelmo Las Arenas for a screening of "Resurrection" (2025 Cannes Jury Special Prize winner) and his 2016 short "Secret Goldfish," followed by an on-stage discussion.
- Bi's carte blanche picks — Fei Mu's "Spring in a Small Town" and Jia Zhangke's "The World" — will screen alongside his own films, a tradition that ties the tribute to broader currents in Chinese cinema.
- The award places Bi in a lineage of Chinese auteurs recognized by the festival: Jia Zhangke received the same honorary prize at the festival's 10th anniversary edition, and "The World" won the Golden Lady Harimaguada and best cinematography in 2005.
Why it matters: The tribute is the festival's marquee 25th-edition honor and cements Bi's transition from arthouse breakout (Kaili Blues' 2016 top prize here) to a Cannes-recognized director, while the carte blanche pairing with Fei Mu and Jia Zhangke frames him as a direct inheritor of a recognized Chinese-cinema lineage at Las Palmas.
