Calls for more cinemas in China
Updated
The movie business is one of the fatest growing industries in China. Thanks to both local and Hollywood blockbusters, millions of Chinese have been flocking to their local cinema. But millions more also miss out. It's a fact which hasn't gone unnoticed at this year's annual sitting of the National People's Congress in Beijing. Six senior government figures have called for more cinemas to be built across the country, saying the current five thousand screens don't meet the demand.
Presenter: David Chen
Speakers: Li Han, editor, ChinaFilm.com: Clifford Coonan, China correspondent, Variety; Professor Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, Dean of Media and Communications, Melbourne's RMIT University
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CHEN: For decades, Chinese film diretor Zhang Yimou has captivated international audiences with dazzling displays of colour and gravity defying scenes of martial arts in films such as Raise the Red Lantern and Hero.
Now, Zhang Yimou wants millions more, mainly those in smaller Chinese cities, to be given the chance to go to the movies.
The renowed director says the current number of around five-thousand cinemas nationwide, is failing to meet the demand from the Chinese public.
Aand he wants local governments in small to medium sized cities to build more cinemas.
Li Han, Editor of ChinaFilm.com, website for state run company China Film Corporation, says it's a policy the Chinese government is keen to develop.
HAN: The government is pushing for more cinemas to be built in smaller cities, the way they do it is by specifying the percentage of cinemas film companies have to build in smaller cities or even rural areas. That's how they maintain and expand cinemas in less populated regions.
CHEN: The Chinese government also wants to protect the local industry and to ensure foreign films don't dominate the screens. At the moment, China has a limit on the number of foreign films allowed to screen in the country, permitting only 20 movies to be shown each year.
According to Chinese media, overall box-office revenue from films released in China in 2009, including foreign movies hit 6.2 billion yuan, that's close to 1 billion US dollars.
Clifford Coonan is the China correspondent for Variety, a US entertainment magazine. He says the rising fortunes of the Chinese film industry are linked to the country's economic prosperity.
COONAN: It's bascially to do with China getting richer and people having disposable income. The idea about going to the movies as a night out isn't really in the Chinese culture, it tends to be more focused on dinner or going out to diner with friends, but in recent years people are going to the movies as a night out.
CHEN: Mr Coonan says improved cinemas are also persuading many Chinese to spend their money at the box office.
COONAN: Beacause of the construction of a large number of new cinemas, that's been crucial to changing the industry, because what used to be a grim experience going to the movies, but that's all changed now and with these new multiplexes in the city.
CHEN: But despite the push to build more cinemas in smaller Chinese cities, Han Li, Editor of ChinaFilm.com, says there's not alot of interest in such an investment.
HAN: Also, the industry is focusing on new technologies, for example, building more 3D cinemas and imax cinemas. That's where the demand is, so I doubt the smaller cities will get significant investment in terms of new cinemas in short term.
CHEN: Professor Stephanie Hemelryk Donald is the Dean of Media and Communications at Melbourne's RMIT University. She says the price of a movie ticket is also another barrier in encouraging the development of cinemas in smaller cities.
DONALD: The other thing of course, is that at the moment cinemas are very expensive. So you put a cinema at the current Shanghai prices and you put it out in a less well off area and no body could afford to go. I mean not that many people can afford to go in the city that often.
CHEN: There's also the issue of censorship. Last year, Chinese censors ordered the 2D version of the hugely popular film Avatar to be pulled from movies screens. But they allowed a smaller number of theatres to show the 3D version of Avatar, limiting the number of people who could see the movie. It was restricted reportedly to lessen the competition for the government backed biopic on Confucious. There were also concerns the movie's plot could encourage unrest.
Professor Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, says tensions between the commerical considerations of privately run cinemas and the aims of China's censorship regime could be a problem for the government.
DONALD: The concern is going to be how we tell that cinema that it's has to show Confucious rather than Avatar even if they it knows perfectly well, the organisation that owns the cinema, when it know it's going to much more money showing Avatar because everyone wants to go see that. But we don't want them to see Avatar, we want them to see Confucious. So it's going to be the exactly the same tensions but on a much wider set stage that has just played out in the urban centres.
CHEN: But Clifford Coonan, Variety magazine's China correspondent says the world shouldn't underestimate Chinese ambitions to one day challenge Hollywood.
COONAN: If a few things come together, there's one director called Feng Xiaogang, who's a Beijing director who's making an film about the Tangshan Earthquake. And alot of the buzz in the industry is that this is the big Chinese movie to watch. So yes I think it's the kind of ambition that you have to certainly take seriously when you look at the way the Chinese film industry is growing.
