More sciencethemed films urged
▶ Team leads call for public interest in field: expert
In a bid to raise public interest in science, a team led by the China Association for Science and Technology is seeking to include more science-themed stories and characters in domestic movies through a nonprofit program to bring together scientists and scriptwriters.
Lin Yuzhi, the team’s chief, told the Global Times on Monday that Hollywood has shown that science-themed movies are one of the most useful ways of raising public interest in science, but such movies in China are still very few.
The program, as Lin’s team suggested, should be non-profit and independent, covering multiple departments – China Association for Science and Technology, the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.
The program can offer five kinds of science advisory services for the crew, including script development, on-site direction or trans-boundary consultancy, according to a statement the team sent to the Global Times on Monday.
Many Chinese audiences are crazy about Hollywood-produced science fiction movies not because it is Hollywood made but because of the movie genre, Lin said.
A survey by the China Research Institute of Science Popularization released in September shows that most Chinese are getting their science news or knowledge through television and online platforms, reaching 68.5 percent and 64.6 percent, respectively.
The proportion of scientifically-literate Chinese citizens has increased to 8.47 percent in 2018, up 2.27 percentage points from three years ago.
However, inequity in science literacy is still a challenge as China aims to have 10 percent of its population to become science literate by 2020, the survey said.
Audiences would choose to watch domestically-made science fiction movies instead of Hollywood ones if Chinese film companies can produce equivalent ones, Lin said, citing that the cooperation between scientists and screenwriters would make this happen.
Lin explained that if Chinese screenwriters and directors, whose backgrounds are mostly in liberal arts, have a proper channel to communicate or visit the actual spot of scientific outcomes, they would have a chance to produce intriguing science stories.
Shi Wenxue, a Beijing-based film critic, told the Global Times on Monday that although there is a gap between science fiction films and the actual popularization of science, via Science fiction films, scientists could talk about real scientific issues.
Themes including outer space, heterogeneous aliens, gene technology, military and games are some of the content that audiences would like to watch in science movies, analysts noted.
Domestic Chinese film market is mostly composed of costume dramas, romantic films and historical dramas. Costume dramas have become the bestdeveloped genre in Chinese movie industry with the largest number of industrial chains and advisers in China – such as advisers on history, architecture and the humanities – but not a single movie has science advisers, Lin said.
The movie critic also commented that the traditional ways of promoting science literacy, such as inviting scientists to write articles and publish opinions online, cannot meet the demand of Chinese, especially teenagers, whose interests are movies and celebrities.
The year of 2019 will be the starting point of Chinese science fiction films, analysts said, as it will screen two domestic films during the Spring Festival – Crazy Alien and The Wandering Earth.