From Chinese screens to the world

Industry insiders spoke about the rise of China's film industry and discussed how Chinese films and culture can be better shared with the rest of world at the ongoing 25th Shanghai International Film Festival.

One of the 14 competitive feature film festivals in the world accredited by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations, the SIFF kicked off on June 9 and runs till Friday.

This year, the festival organizers received 8,800 film submissions from 128 countries and regions that will compete for the Golden Goblet Awards in five categories: the main competition, Asian new talent, documentary films, animation films and short films.

During the opening session of the SIFF forum on Saturday, Fu Ruoqing, chairman of the China Film Group Corp, spoke about the growth of China's film industry, noting that Chinese domestic productions now account for 80 percent of the country's box-office volume.

"This is mainly because Chinese films are doing a better job telling stories … plus, they are capable of using new technologies, and directors are showing significant improvement in their creative strength. We are confident to say that Chinese films have now become more attractive to mainstream audiences," he said.

China's film industry had undergone three difficult years due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, the Chinese box office raked in sales of 30.07 billion yuan ($4.2 billion), a drastic drop of 36.4 percent from the previous year, according to the Research Project on the Chinese Film Industry, which was released by the China Film Association during the SIFF.

However, sales rebounded at the beginning of this year, with box-office takings during the Spring Festival season alone totaling 20 billion yuan. Two blockbuster films, Full River Red, a historical thriller by Zhang Yimou, and Wandering Earth II, a science-fiction sequel, accounted for more than 40 percent of the total revenue during this period.

Yin Hong, vice-chairman of China Film Association, suggested that one of the factors behind this growth is a growing interest among young audiences for productions with elements of Chinese culture such as traditional costumes and folk music instruments.

"We believe Chinese culture will attract more support from young audiences all over the world," he said at the China Movie and TV Night, a gala show hosted on Saturday by China Media Group, included as part of the program of the SIFF.

Among the upcoming film and TV productions recommended at the China Movie and TV Night was Genshin, an animation series adapted from Genshin Impact, a role-playing video game produced by Shanghai Mihoyo Network Technology Co.

Featuring Chinese landscapes, traditional customs and folk music and opera, the TV series was created by Mihoyo in collaboration with internationally renowned animation company Ufotable. The animation will be released later this year.

New technological developments in the filmmaking industry are being highlighted at the SIFF as well. For example, the festival organizers have introduced a project called the SIFF Vision Lab, an interactive exhibition of the latest technologies in immersive entertainment experiences that started on June 9 and will run till Sunday at the PUSH Plaza in Shanghai.

Alvin Wang Graylin, China president of HTC, spoke at the opening of the exhibition about how technological evolution has led to innovations in the content, media and experience of audio and visual entertainment.

Yin singled out the Wandering Earth sequel as a prime example of how technology has greatly enhanced the Chinese film industry, noting that these films "adopted all kinds of the latest digital technologies, including AI. … The science-fiction sequel represents the highest level of integrated visual technology the Chinese movie industry has achieved in the past year."

Liu Xin, CEO of Migu, a digital content subsidiary of China Mobile, said that the film and TV industry, as "the pearl in the crown of audiovisual industries, should be a hotbed for the latest technologies."