A few days ago, Yu Dong, chairman of Bona Films, said when attending the Forum of the 4th Hainan Island Film Festival that "Avatar: The Way of Water", which is currently being screened, said, "American movies are more about sci-fi heroes and anime heroes. Today's Chinese movie viewing habits have gradually drifted away, which has led Chinese audiences to prefer domestic movies, and film and television works that revolve around Chinese stories and are in line with China's national conditions and Chinese culture." At the same time, Yu Dong also sent a message to this year's Spring Festival. "The Wandering Earth 2" surpassed "Avatar: Way of Water" at the box office.
Yu Dong's remarks sparked many discussions on the Internet. On December 20th, at the Hainan Island International Film Festival, they continued to conduct in-depth exchanges on the creation of Chinese films with the theme of "Based on an international perspective and telling Chinese stories well". discuss. At the forum, director and screenwriter Zhang Ming, screenwriter and producer Zhang Jialu, producers Li Ning, Zhang Yisong, Zhang Yu, art director Han Zhong and other filmmakers discussed the topic of international expression of Chinese film creation from a global perspective.
Group photo of guests
Talking about "International Vision" in the context of reopening
As a reunion after the opening of the epidemic, the speeches of filmmakers on the forum have also been substituted into the current new context.
Zhang Ming
Zhang Ming, the sixth-generation director who has always dared to speak out, said in the face of the "international perspective" proposed by the host, "China has been severely isolated from the outside world in recent years. Under such a large environment, the forum can regain its direction. The topic of international vision requires courage. After experiencing disasters, everyone can return to a certain starting point and start talking about how our Chinese films will go to the world. We filmmakers are now responsible for this matter.”
Producer and screenwriter Zhang Jialu also believes that after the three-year epidemic, the topic of "internationalization" has become very different. stage."
Zhang Jialu also talked about the recent issue of "Avatar 2" not performing as expected in the Chinese market, ""Avatar 2" was released recently, we suddenly felt that 2 was not very good-looking, some thought it was too long, and some thought the story was old-fashioned, maybe in our ten years It was a completely different impression two or three years ago. In the past 20 or 30 years, we have been learning the methods of so-called American genre movies, but now we have this opportunity to stop and think about whether there is a storytelling method that is more suitable for Chinese audiences."
Zhang Yisong, general manager and producer of Beijing Television Art Center Co., Ltd., talked about his years of experience in participating in large and small overseas festivals and exhibitions, and sharply pointed out, "Many foreign film festivals and film activities, 90% are local Chinese and overseas Chinese. Use this to achieve some other goals.” In his opinion, “International vision should be a means, not an end. The vision is what we want to see the world has become now, what new technologies, Fresh solutions. What topics are you expressing and paying attention to? These are actually for the purpose of making better movies and better stories, not for selling our movies overseas. This is based on the current Chinese film industry. We should not be in such a hurry to realize this ambition, and there are still more than ten years before the establishment of a film powerhouse by 2035, we should do the basic work well."
Director Zhang Ming, who has been cultivating literary and artistic films for a long time, talked about the current situation of Chinese films in terms of international influence, "In the domestic film ecosystem, in fact, most of the bottom-line production companies are going to have an international perspective, and they may prefer to maintain their own. The spirit of originality, upholding the common values of mankind. Therefore, the most basic thing for Chinese films to go global is to gain a foothold and cultivate a good soil so that various ideas and creativity can take root and germinate.”
Take root in Chinese soil and return to creation itself
In the face of the current brand-new market environment, the guests at the meeting mentioned many times that it is more urgent to restore the form of domestic films to the normal and healthy development path before the epidemic through good works. What the current Chinese films urgently need to do is to return to the film itself and bring the audience back to the cinema with good content.
Li Ning, Senior Vice President of Xinli Media Group and CEO of Xinli Films, said: "Chinese films now need a Chinese perspective, and what is more important at the moment is to find a way to make Chinese audiences return to theaters and like to watch our movies. Only when the complete industrial chain from academic research, innovation, investment, film production to publicity, distribution, and screening can be revived, can a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend.”
Consistent with Li Ning's view, "Let the market have films and let the audience go back to the cinema", this is also what the producer Zhang Yu expects, "We hope to invite the audience back to the cinema first, and we also hope that through the film festival Help pioneer topic selection projects with an international perspective, help them in a real sense, and promote them.”
Zhang Jialu
Zhang Jialu said that at present, the largest recycling market for Chinese films is still in China, and overseas accounts for a very small part. "Now our primary goal is to survive, whether it is on the creative end, production end, distribution end, or theater end. The most important thing is to live. Including Hong Kong movies, we must live to grow ourselves before letting the world hear our voices and see the stories we want to express."
Li Ning talked about the logic of companies that have participated in the production of popular comedies such as "Hello, Li Huanying", "This Killer Is Not Calm", "The Richest Man in Xihong City", "Under the current general environment, the logic of our Xinli Films is Stick to the typed things that I am good at, because each stage of the typed things has formed a relatively complete and mature operation logic, which will support our chances of maintaining survival in the fiercely competitive and intricate film market. The current situation is very severe, we must spare no effort to tell Chinese stories well, and at the same time, we must strengthen the genre films we are good at and make them successful."
Zhang Ming called on the content creation of movies to "be based on our own lives. Any movie that moves towards an international perspective must have a realistic foundation. This is the minimum. Any movie that is divorced from a realistic foundation cannot be universal." Facing the current creation, we also need to have a good ecological environment to ensure that the creators can output in a timely manner, "Movies have a shelf life, and movies are very time-sensitive works. We must maintain a system that allows everyone to talk about it, and the movie can still be played. To come out, we must have a good ecological environment, and only on this basis can we talk about going international, which is a very serious problem for all industries at present.”
Regarding telling Chinese stories well and returning to the creation of content, the producer Zhang Yu appealed, "I especially hope that when we let go and start to face the world again, can filmmakers like us have a relatively loose soil. Many interesting The story and many interesting characters are inseparable from interesting topics, so that we can dig out interesting things, which is what all filmmakers hope for most.”
