Post-Pandemic Polarization of China’s Film Market Tests Arthouse Films and Firms

New Zealand at the beginning of the pandemic.Jaye Tremble has only spent two months in lockdown since the coronavirus outbreak last year.The 22-year-old, from Irvine, spent 2020 going to four festivals, nightclubs every weekend, and travelled the country in a campervan before getting a job at a kiwi farm on the other side of the world.But despite her freedom Jaye admitted she is really missing her family and getting a chinese takeaway.Now she has lifted the lid on what her life has been like

The Beijing International Film Festival, which typically takes place in mid-April but has yet to announce its plans for 2021, is considering a postponement to August. Organizers are hoping that by late summer the pandemic will have subsided to an extent that international filmmakers and guests are able to travel to China to participate in the event, sources in contact with organizers of the government-backed festival told The Hollywood Reporteron Friday.

Rebecca Davis editorTop Chinese director Feng Xiaogang will step in front of the camera alongside Chinese-American actor-director Joan Chen in a local adaptation of the 2009 Hollywood tearjerker “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale,” which began shooting Thursday.It is currently set to premiere on New Year’s Eve.Feng is best known for his work as a director on films such as “Youth,” “I Am Not Madame Bovary” and “Cellphone,” but he has also frequently taken on acting roles, with his most recent starring role in

March 2021 has been full of reminders of the one-year anniversary of the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. “The Last Cruise” trailer invokes one of the earliest indicators that something was about the change — the Diamond Princess Curse ship.

Naman Ramachandran A new documentary from Bhutan will share the Himalayan Buddhist kingdom’s unique philosophy of Gross National Happiness (GNH) with the world.Bhutan’s King Jigme Singye Wangchuk came up with the phrase in 1972 when he said that GNH is more important than Gross Domestic Product.

Rebecca Davis editorChinese helmer Xu Lei will return to the subject of rural life in northern China for his second feature “The Peacemaker,” one of the 20 narrative film projects selected to participate in the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum this year.Xu’s suspenseful and darkly humorous first film “Summer Detective,” which he wrote and directed, was nominated for best feature and won the prize for best script at the 2019 FIRST International Film Festival, which focuses on emerging talent.

Rebecca Davis editorThe Shanghai International Film Festival will take place this year from June 11 to June 19.The news comes less than two weeks after Gao Yunfei, the head of Shanghai’s municipal film administration and vice-minister of its propaganda department, stated at a press conference that the city was considering pushing the event back to July.Registration for the 24th annual event is now open to “Chinese and foreign filmmakers and industry people,” the festival said, implying a door

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.

“Avatar” has reclaimed its crown, and is once again the film with the biggest box office in Hollywood history.

James Cameron‘s 2009 film Avatar has become the highest-grossing film of all-time at the global box office – again!

As has been expected over the past few days, James Cameron’s Avatar has swapped places with Avengers: Endgame, reclaiming the title of highest-grossing movie ever worldwide. The China reissue of the 2009 3D sci-fi phenomenon had taken an estimated RMB 58M ($8.9M) through 5PM local time on Saturday after re-releasing on Friday in the market.

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.

Dalian Wanda, which acquired AMC Entertainment in 2012, surrendered control of the struggling exhibitor as it issued and sold tranches of new stock to raise cash — diluting the stake of the Chinese conglomerate.

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.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentThe Berlin Film Festival’s European Film Market had a successful 2021 online edition with the participation of 12,000 attendees from 131 countries. The industry event, which took place March 1-5, gathered 504 exhibitors — 215 of which were newcomers at EFM — from 60 countries.

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.

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.