Summit meeting discusses China & Hollywood film co-operation

Ever since the box office success of "2012" and "Avatar" in China, Chinese market has been considered the biggest potential market for Hollywood.

 

Yesterday\'s industry summit - "New Front for Industry Collaboration Between China and Hollywood" has proved to be a highlight of the ongoing 13th Shanghai International Film Festival, where major players from both industries brainstormed about this key partnership for future world cinema.

"As a matter of fact, Chinese film industry did not actually boom until about three years ago," said Yu Dong, president of Bona International Film Group. "Without many big film production companies and theaters, at that time, a lot of investors didn\'t believe that they could get back return from this industry."

But after few years\' development, last year China produced 456 movies and the country\'s movie theaters took in more than 6 billion yuan, a 40 percent increase over the year before.

However, the top two highest-grossing films were Hollywood productions - "2012" and "Transformers 2," both made more than 400 million yuan at the box office in China.

Veteran film maker Feng Xiaogang noted that Chinese film makers have to admit the huge technology gap between domestic industry and Hollywood.

"Currently the special effects development can\'t match the flourishing of our film market," he said. "Many young talents of our country are enthusiastic about film directing and acting, but they won\'t take up a career of film technical production."

He added that Chinese film makers should first learn from Hollywood counterparts their expertise in special effects technology, marketing and distribution mechanism.

In the eyes of Robert Pisano, president and chief operating officer of Motion Picture Association, there are growing opportunities of cooperation between Chinese and American film industry, yet not everything Hollywood offers is good thing. Learn something but don\'t copy everything.

"As to Chinese film makers, a key to success is telling the right story people want to see," Pisano says. "China has a rich cultural heritage. You have so many storeis to tell. But firstly you need to find the way of telling stories, and then translate them and make them accessible to people around the world."

Richard Gelfond, CEO of IMAX is looking forward to two-way straight cooperation between the two industries in the near future.

In addition to building more IMAX theaters in China, he also plans to bring excellent IMAX Chinese films to the world, such as director Feng\'s latest offering "Aftershocks," a film about the devastating 1976 Tangshan Earthquake.