Murdoch and his wife Wendi Deng at SIFF\'s Opening and SIFFORUM

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his wife Wendi Deng are confirmed for the opening ceremony and first forum of this year’s Shanghai International Film Festival.

This year’s Industry Summit will open with a group brainstorm on the subject “Cooperation between Capital and Film”. Topics such as whether film companies need to be listed, how, and what their prospects are will be discussed.

China’s 2011 box office has broken the 10 billion RMB milestone and many film companies have begun to develop a capital market. Chinese films’ capacity and investment scale show geometric growth, but there is a disproportionate growth in productivity and creativity. The forum will focus on the reasons from the capital market angle and consider the following questions: How much influence will capital bring to film creativity? What can film companies and film productivity return to the capital market? Is IPO the only way to extend film capacity, and what other options are there? How do so many independent US production companies operate without the help of the capital market, and how do they survive? What experiences can be shared with Chinese investment and film circles from foreign film companies? Mr. Murdoch, whose public appearances have been rare lately, will bring his considerable expertise to bear on these topics.

The SIFFORUM is renowned for its high-end platform for discussing the current Chinese film industry and providing guidelines for industry development. The SIFFORUM of the 14th Shanghai International Film Festival will take place in June, 2011. Taking “Chinese Approaches, Global Value” as its theme, the SIFFORUM will consist of 10 seminars in four sections: the “Presidential Lecture”, “Industry Summit”, “Film Roundtable”, and “Master Class”, presenting a platform for over seventy important Chinese and global figures to exchange ideas.