Bumpkin-to-celebrity movies the current favourites
SHANGHAI: Bumpkin-tocelebrity themed movies are the current favourites among audiences in China, according to Frida Fan, project manager at the Shanghai International Film Festival.
Last year, after the success of Leste Chen’s The Great Hypnotist, there were many submissions of detective stories and murderromances.
This year, drawing large audiences are films about bumpkins who succeed in life, probably influenced by Ning Hao’s Breakup Buddies.
On the successes of Shanghai Project movies of the past year, Fan said: “Two of the films in last year’s project market have completed their shooting and are now in post-production. They are Xu Haofeng’s The Master, which we previewed during our closing ceremony, and Xu Wei’s Lost in White which finished shooting in April. The latter stars Tong Dawei and Zhou Dongyu.”
Reflecting on movies from Taiwan- and Hong Kong-based directors, she said: “Many Taiwan directors are now based in Shanghai and Beijing. Two of the Taiwan directors in this year’s project market are based in Shanghai that I met through film-maker friends and then invited to participate. So there are more and more Taiwan filmmakers moving to the Mainland, and they’re making China films.”
Talking about the direction she hopes to take this year, Fan said: “I wanted to increase the diversity of the projects. We always have arthouse and indie films, but I also wanted more genre films. For these more commercial titles, we’d like them to be at a more advanced state of development, with a script and a producer or production company already attached. We’re open to thrillers, love comedies, family dramas, etc. This year, we were quite surprised to have two science fiction films.”
Last year there were 28 projects. There are 35 this year, so the spawning process for movies is on the increase.
On the focus of the Shanghai film festival, Fan said: “We’ll still focus on China projects and co-productions with China. Our project market in Shanghai was born with the mission of making co-productions.
“Ten year ago, the Chinese film market was not as promising as it is today and co-production was what investors were looking for.”
On the outlook for next year, she said: “For next year, we’ll still be China focused with just a handful of co-productions.”