Chloe Zhao's 'Nomadland' Cleared for China Release

In Oscar history, there’s never been more than one female filmmaker nominated in the Best Directing category in a single year.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefChinese indie sales agency Blossoms Entertainment returns to FilMart with a slate of large-scale commercial pictures sourced from a clutch of China’s biggest film studios.The agency, operated by former IM Global staffers Vicky Ding and Leslie Chen, is pre-selling “Railway Heroes,” a tale of heroism and wartime sabotage which is targeting a National Day release in October.

Also Read: Brie Larson Reveals All the Movies She Auditioned for and Didn't Get, From 'Pitch Perfect' to 'Avatar' (Video)“Avatar” is also the first Hollywood film to top the Chinese weekend box office charts in 2021, following a February in which multiple local films pushed Lunar New Year grosses to a record $1.2 billion as the market has fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic.

You know it’s a good week on Real Time when the two stories that have consumed the week’s news — the accusations against Andrew Cuomo and the accusations against the Royal Family — take a backseat to weightier topics such as crony capitalism and the hegemony of China.

If you find yourself the subject of a nationwide internet backlash, the most natural reaction might be to lie low for a while. But Chinese filmmaker Chloé Zhao probably doesn't have that option.

Ubisoft has announced the release date for Myths Of The Eastern Realm, the second of three planned DLC packs for Immortals Fenyx Rising.Per an announcement via the official Ubisoft website, Myths Of The Eastern Realm is scheduled to arrive on March 25.

Vadim Perelman's modestly budgeted holocaust drama Persian Lessons has been set for release in China on March 19 — in the shadow of James Cameron's surpriseAvatar re-release. The well-regarded Belarusian-Russian film will pose a test of China's market for emotionally potent foreign indie filmmaking, which had been growing steadily before the disastrous onset of the pandemic.

Rebecca Davis editorZhang Yimou has been hard at work alongside his daughter Zhang Mo shooting his upcoming blockbuster “Sniper,” which is now set for an October release, its production firm said.The project was explicitly conceived as a nationalistic commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Korean War, known in China as the “War to Resist U.S.

Rebecca Davis editorChina is belatedly scrambling to fill in its post-Lunar New Year screening calendar, announcing Tuesday that it would round out its March offerings with foreign title “Persian Lessons” and a re-release of “Avatar.”“Avatar” will hit in just three days’ time on March 12. The official screening green light comes so close to the film’s actual re-release date that it appears the DCP hard drives might not even make it to some cinemas in time.

Seemingly out of nowhere, James Cameron is back at the multiplex —but only in China. China's Film Bureau has approved a surprise plan for the director's 2009 sci-fi epic Avatar to get a wide re-release in the country on Friday, according to two sources at Chinese movie theater companies, which were informed of the arrangements.

Nomadland has been censored in China due to comments the director made about the country in a past interview.In 2013, Zhao, who became the first Asian woman to win a Golden Globe for Best Director last month.Initially, the film’s upcoming release was promoted in China, with state media lauding Zhao as “the pride of China”.On Friday (March 5) though, show times for the film were removed from ticketing websites and references to the film began to disappear.As the Guardian reports, a

Rebecca Davis editorChina’s top law-making body will consider this week a popular proposition to ban actors who have used drugs from entertainment industry for life at its annual weeklong meeting, which kicked off Friday.The National People’s Congress, the country’s rubber stamp parliament, counts some 3,000 professionals from across the country as delegates, including directors Jia Zhangke, Feng Xiaogang and Chen Kaige, as well as Jackie Chan and Yao Ming.

Rebecca Davis editorChloe Zhao’s “Nomadland” was quietly swept from the Chinese web Friday, days after nationalist backlash erupted online over questions of her citizenship and over a sentence she spoke to a U.S.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefImax China, the supplier of giant screen cinema facilities and services in Greater China, is one of the purest plays on the mainland Chinese movie exhibition market available to investors.

Netflix will release Kevin Hart's Fatherhood on Father's Day, presenting the movie withBarack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions. The streamer acquired the worldwide rights for the feature from Sony Pictures, which has had to push the release date of the film several times due to the continued theatrical shutdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rebecca Davis editorThe Chadwick Boseman-starring police action film “21 Bridges” will hit Chinese theaters on March 19, the first Hollywood action title to debut in the world’s largest film market so far this year.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterKevin Hart’s upcoming drama “Fatherhood” will fittingly premiere on Netflix on Father’s Day weekend.The film, directed by Paul Weitz, was originally set up at Sony Pictures and slated to release theatrically on April 16. However, the studio has negotiated a licensing deal with Netflix (excluding China) as nearly 50% of U.S.

Sony and Higher Ground Productions will have its Kevin Hart drama Fatherhood released on Netflix on the Friday before Father’s Day, June 18.

Rebecca Davis editorCBS Films’ 2019 romantic drama “Five Feet Apart” is set to release on March 12 in China, where it is sensibly being marketed as a romance for the COVID-19 era.The announcement comes less than two weeks ahead from its debut, as Beijing appears to scramble to fill an otherwise rather empty screening calendar. Strong local titles have shied away from competing with holdover Chinese New Year blockbusters now reaching the tail end of their first month in theaters.

Pierre Morel’s upcoming action thrillerThe Blacksmith, which recently lost its star Nick Jonas due to a scheduling conflict, has a deal in place for the important China market. Beijing-based distributor Infotainment China Media picked up rights to the film ahead of Berlin's European Film Market and plans to stick with the project despite the casting change-up.