China’s biggest independent film festival forced to suspend operations indefinitely

China's largest independent film festival has suspended its operations indefinitely after the organizers said it was now "impossible" to maintain a "purely independent spirit", a media report said on Friday. The China Independent Film Festival (CIFF), which provided a platform for films covering a range of sensitive topics that were not covered by mainstream festivals, released a statement on Thursday announcing that it would be suspended indefinitely after 17 years, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Friday.

"We believe it is impossible to locally organize a film festival with a purely independent spirit and even film festivals as a mechanism need to be reflected on," the paper quoted the statement as saying. "For those local film festivals that try to encourage the spirit of independence under the cloak of safety, we express our respect," the statement said.

CIFF said the festival had finished its historic mission of "films for freedom". "The CIFF will be forgotten, but we hope that the films we've chosen can be remembered," it said.

The CIFF was seen as one of the largest platforms for Chinese independent works and was founded by film commentator and curator Zhang Yaxuan and artist Cao Kai in the eastern city of Nanjing in 2003. It has been staged 14 times since then, showing around 1,000 films including features and documentaries, according to the Post report.