III. Booming Sino-foreign cooperation to shoot films

Along with the improvement and expansion of the opening up policy, China is doing growingly more cultural exchanges with the outside world. More and more foreign countries and regions expect to shoot films with Chinese counterparts in the country. The foreign filmmakers are amazed at the charming landscape, pleasing scenes, rich human landscapes, and splendid national cultures in the country. The parties showing strong cooperation inclinations include Gaumont Picture Corporation in France, known as the largest of its kind in Europe, Hollywood from the United States, Robert Wise who directed the world famous The Sound of Music, and many other world famous film directors and producers.

Robert Wise

Under this situation, the Ministry of Culture officially set up the China Film Cooperation Production Company in July 1979, to take charge of the businesses of cooperating with foreign parties to shoot films and TV programs. According to incomplete statistics, by 1997, the company had worked with businesses or individuals from about 40 countries and regions, including the United States, Japan, Germany, Australia, Canada and Britain, to shoot 600 long and short films. They included about 300 feature movies, with 20 winning multiple prizes at international film festivals. As it enters the new stage, China has cooperated with foreign parties to shoot a large number of films, with some exerting big influences in the international film market.

Cooperation to shoot films will not only make it easier to bring the films into the world market, but also facilitate enhancing China’s publicity efforts to the outside world and elevate China’s international status, because it makes China more influential towards audiences across the world. Cooperated films also exert positive and sound impacts politically.

When it came to the 1990s, China’s films jointly shot with foreign partners boomed in an unprecedented scale and amount. They showed diversified trends in themes, styles and production.

In recent years, Sino-foreign cooperation in shooting films has shown high momentum. From 1994 to 1997, the jointly produced films amounted to 96, occupying 21 percent of all homemade feature movies. Most of them were produced with Hong Kong partners, with a few with Taiwan peers. These cooperated films were largely superb in artistic and technological levels. They included, for instance, the well-known film Ashes of Time（1994 with Beijing Film Studio）.

The modes of cooperating to shoot films have developed from the original financial cooperation to multiple ways. These days, most cooperated films are shot by using the name, staff workers and equipment of Chinese mainland film studios, while overseas film producers made investment. Such a mode has considerably lessened the shortage of floating funds in Chinese film studios, and contributed to boost homemade films and the Chinese film industry.

IV. Chinese film elites go global

In the new historic stage, China has witnessed the emergence of a group of world-class film directors and other staff, in accompany with Chinese films going to splendor again. Their films have ranked among the best in the world, and won many prizes in international film festivals. Many of these people have set foot in international film affairs. Chinese filmmakers are having a say in all sectors of the international film industry. These Chinese film industry workers include Xie Jin, Pan Hong, Gong Li and Zhang Yimou.