China Daily Asia Weekly - China Daily Session at FILMART 2015

Reeling in the crowds for regional films
Asia’s growing movie industry is set to benefit from a new generation of audiences along the New Silk Road and beyond.
A push to develop and produce more Asian films could help the industry use the emerging New Silk Road to grow across the region and globally, a movie industry conference has heard in Hong Kong.
More collaboration on- and off-screen, greater resources, growing audiences and markets, as well as a push to raise production values and revenues, will all help domestic film industries in the region expand and reach new audiences.
“Since 2014, the Asian (film) market has increased by 12 percent. Asia should account for about 20 percent of the global market in a decade,” said Lee Yong-kwan, director of the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea. And this is not likely to be a difficult target to meet.
Lee was speaking at The New Silk Road of Asia’s Film Industry: Challenges, Opportunities and Partnership, a roundtable session sponsored by China Daily during the Hong Kong International Film & TV Market (Filmart) conference on March 25.
One unique characteristic of the film industry in Asia is that it is growing on all fronts, even in areas that are slowing down in more developed markets.
The number of regional theater screens is rising as cities and countries develop, while an increasingly affluent middle class looks for more entertainment options. In sharp contrast, cinema revenues in many developed markets are dropping.
At the same time, online platforms are also growing, just as they are in markets around the world.
“Traditional theaters are not decreasing their influence,” said Wilfred Wong Ying-wai, chairman of the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society, who is also chair of the Asian Film Awards Academy and vice-chair of the Hong Kong Film Development Council.
“We are looking at a new generation of moviegoers. We are facing a market that is growing in parallel,” said Wong.
And closer ties among countries along China’s proposed New Silk Road could power this dual growth further, agreed Wong’s fellow speakers.
“We are here today to discuss a new and exciting concept for Asia’s film industry,” said Zhou Li, publisher and editor-in-chief of China Daily Asia Pacific, in his welcoming remarks.
Powered in large part by the rapid growth of the film industry in China, the New Silk Road could provide a path for Asian films to spread globally.
China’s push to boost trade through the promotion of the One Belt, One Road strategy extends to the film industry, said Raymond Yip, deputy executive director at the Hong Kong Trade Development Council. It organized the 19th Filmart, Asia’s largest film and entertainment industry trade show, this week.
“If you are looking to expand your business in the Chinese mainland or throughout Asia, you are in the right place and at the right time,” Yip said. “China is the second-largest film market in the world after the US. Nearly 6,000 film screens, all digital, have been added across China.”
There are now 26,000 screens across the country.
“There are, of course, a number of challenges and plenty of issues to be addressed by Asia’s film industry,” said Yip.
These challenges could be significant. A first challenge is the demographic change across the region. Japan is a good example of this.
The growth of Asian film is on display in Japan, where the size of the market of around $1.7 billion has not changed in a decade despite an aging population. What has changed is the composition of box office revenues, with domestic films taking a bigger share of the pie.
“Last year, Japanese movies were a big hit and had about 50 percent of the Japanese market and foreign films took about 40 percent,” said Yasushi Shiina, director general of the Tokyo International Film Festival. “We have made the Japanese market much better for Japanese movies.”
But the population of Japan could drop by almost a third in a couple of decades and that could translate into a similar decline in the movie industry.
A second concern is access to talent.
“We have a shortage of directors, producers, writers and playwrights,” said Ann An, president of the Beijing-based Desen International Media. This may be hindering growth and the development of quality products.
“The film industry in China in recent years is very attractive, even amazing.”
For example, in previous Spring Festival holidays, about three films were released. However, this past year, there were eight movie releases.
“People might think that with all these films squeezing into this time, the box office might be diluted, but we had very good results,” said An. Box office receipts rose 40 percent and audiences rose 30 percent.
A third concern is market access. Some markets have rules limiting the number of foreign films that are allowed in. Eliminating those rules, even within Asia, could go a long way toward helping the industry grow.
“The New Silk Road should not just be targeting the China market but all Asian markets in a balanced manner,” said South Korea’s Lee.
This was a vision that Ma Runsheng, president of the China Radio, Film and Television Program Exchange Center, agreed with.
“In the old Silk Road, we had various communications (channels) for various commodities,” he said, adding that it only stands to reason that it could happen again.
Pantham Thongsang, deputy secretary for academic affairs at The National Federation of Motion Pictures and Contents Associations, in Thailand, said the opportunities the New Silk Road brings are huge, especially in China.
“Everyone expects that revenues in China over the next few years will be bigger than Hollywood,” he added.
The Thai film industry seems poised to benefit from some recent developments. The country has emerged both as a popular location to shoot films and a producer of films and actors that are popular in China.
It would make sense for the industry to focus on their domestic markets first and then to look to neighboring countries for growth rather than to Hollywood, said Zhu Huilong, CEO at Heyi Pictures and senior vice-president at online video company Youku Tudou.
“In future, I think we have to penetrate the Asian market first,” Zhu said. “We should start some Asian films. If you combine China and Japan, it would surpass the US, so that is a great opportunity.”
The natural progression, then, is more collaboration, said Li Yansong, president of iQIYI Motion Pictures in Beijing.
“When I refer to collaboration, I refer to different companies. For our company, we may want to collaborate with Hong Kong companies first,” said Li. “Our international strategy is to enlarge cooperation with international companies.”
All this discussion of expanding the film industry from China outward marks a significant reversal, said William Pfeiffer, CEO at Dragongate Entertainment in Hong Kong.
“The film industry in Asia 30 years ago was about exporting American films to Asia,” he said. The push to develop more films that appeal to audiences across cultures strengthens the links needed “to create this New Silk Road in film”.
And yet, much of the discussion remains academic, said Clifford Coonan, Asia bureau chief of The Hollywood Reporter in the US. A lot of the traffic, at least for films, along the New Silk Road is “one way”.
“The big juggernauts from Hollywood are going to China but there is not a lot of traffic the other way,” he said.
But there is potential. There is a lot of local content that is doing very well in China and there are visible signs of more regional cooperation, both on- and off-screen.
“We are very focused on the shop front but there is a lot happening in the back office,” Coonan said.
“Asian filmmakers are really coming together in terms of financing … and off-screen talent,” said Raymond Zhou, a columnist and film critic with China Daily. “We are approaching the era when there will be a so-called ‘Asian film’ … that not only works in one country but in many Asian countries.
“When filmmakers can do a story that transcends cultural barriers, they can have a market that transcends their own.”
http://www.chinadailyasia.com/2015-03/27/content_15244569.html