Surprises are expected at the FIRST International Film Festival, given its role as China’s leading gathering for cutting-edge independent cinema.

But no one saw Sunday night coming.

When it came time to announce the festival’s top Best feature film, the FIRST jury — led by Cannes Un Certain Regard winner Guan Hu (Black Dog) — left jaws dropping inside Xining’s Qinghai Grand Theater when they said they’d decided against naming one at all.

“The duty of film festival is to call for pioneering and cutting-edge works, to discover those who have set foot on the shores of the future and to honor creators who renew dogma through aesthetics and excavate new worlds through practice,” the jury statement read.

“Reviewing this year’s filmmaking landscape, there is ample diversity but no single outstanding work; many have steadily advanced, yet there is a lack of those who have raised new horizons. Therefore, the jury has decided that the honor for Best Feature Film will remain vacant this year, with anticipation and belief in the future.”

Cue a few squeals, some seat shuffling and side-eyes as the nine-day event came to a close, but there was plenty of applause, too. It was also somehow a fittingly enigmatic ending to a festival that prides itself on introducing the latest trends — and talent — in Chinese cinema.

So, the spotlight instead fell on the Grand Jury Prize and a film the jury described as “sharply edged, with powerful sensory impact” — Chen Yanbin’s Sailing Song of June.

Set in the cultural melting pot that is the mountainous southwestern Chinese province of Guizhou, the film mixes local myths with the hard realities of an existence overshadowed by crime.

“The characters, storytelling, performances and editing work together to build a town world brimming with desire and power,” the jury said. “Its inherent creative spirit is decisive, brave and steadfast, representing the potent vitality of emerging creators.”

The director said he hoped his film mirrored contemporary society in his home province.

Best director went to Baggio Jiang, currently still studying Film and Psychology at Stanford University, for his debut feature Shards.

The film was inspired by a post-pandemic reunion and chronicles a dinner where a family’s relationships slowly fall apart.

Shards was described by the director as an “experimental feature” that took its narrative inspiration from the traditional Chinese porcelain reconstruction process of fixing broken shards together to make a new object.

The FIRST Festival also staged a unique First Frame competition that’s open to films by or about Chinese women. This year it was won by the documentary Unstoppable, which focuses on three years in the life of Chinese world mixed martial-arts star Zhang Weili, a hugely popular athlete in China.

“I hope that people can now see Weili as a person as well as a fighter,” said director Xu Huijing, who was joined on stage by the fighter on Saturday to pick up the award.

Sunday night’s star-studded awards ceremony saw A-listers Chang Chen and Wu Kan-ren mix with Zhang Jingyi and other rising stars. It brought the curtain down on the July 20-28 festival, staged annually in the central Chinese city of Xining, known as the gateway to the Tibetan Plateau.

See the full winners list below:

Best Narrative Feature

Vacant

Grand Jury Prize

Sailing Song of June, directed by Chen Yanbin 

Best Director

Baggio Jiang for Shards

Best Performance

Huang Jingyi for Fishbone

Best Artistic Originality

Jiang Geng for production design in The Small Village

Best Screenplay

Huo Xueying and Zhang Yudi for The Midsummer’s Voice

Spirit of Freedom

Fu Zongsheng for Chengzi_1

Best Documentary

I’m Gonna Find You, directed by Meng Xiao

 Best Short Film

Extracurricular Activity, directed by Dean Wei and Xu Yidan

Best Animated Short

Candy, directed by Ying Xun

Special Mentions

The Dreamer in the Jungle, directed by Tu Hailun
Unstoppable, directed by Xu Huijing
Baozhda, directed by Keran Abukasimu