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The Sino-Foreign Film Co-Production Forum, part of the fourth Beijing International Film Festival, took place on Thursday, April 17.
The event welcomed various renowned guests, including acclaimed filmmakers Alfonso Cuaron, Timur Bekmambetov, Ning Ying, Jean Reno and Oliver Stone. Peter Czernin, a British producer best known for his work on The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and Frederick Huntsberry, COO of Paramount Pictures, also participated in the forum’s panel discussion.
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Oscar winning directors Alfonso Cuaron(left) and Oliver Stone at the Sino-Foreign Film Co-Production Forum, part of the fourth Beijing International Film Festival, on April 17. [Photo by Michael Thai/China Daily] |
The forum kicked off with a signing ceremony for Outcast 2, a China-France-Canada co-production featuring Nicolas Cage and Hayden Christenson, and Warrior’s Gate, a China-France co-production. Official remarks were made by Tong Gang – vice-minister of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television and chairman of the film censorship board – and Christopher Dodd, former US senator and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America. The two men touched on the importance of US-China collaboration in the film industry, especially in relation to outreach programs to enhance communication and sharing of expertise among film industry professionals.
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Guests of the Sino-Foreign Film Co-Production Forum take a group photo after a panel discussion, Beijing, April 17. [Photo by Michael Thai/China Daily] |
The forum’s panel discussion, hosted by Zhang Xun, president of China Film Co-Production Corporation, provided a platform for the guests to discuss the state of Sino-foreign co-productions. Academy Award-winning director Oliver Stone was especially critical of co-productions that fail to uphold artistic integrity in pursuit of financial opportunities. "I think the language, the casting, the acting is terrible. You take an actor or actress and put them into a second language, it doesn’t often work. And people always do it, because money is the dictator."
Stone's criticism of US companies coming to China to use Chinese actors as background "because they want the money" met with resounding applause. The director went on to discuss how performances and intent are often lost in translation. "Words are very important. The beauty of the Chinese language is precisely because they are doing it in Chinese. I am one of those people who love Chinese movies and I hope you never change or bastardize yourselves to become American or to become some kind of international money-oriented phenomenon."
Alfonso Cuaron discussed the importance of making co-productions that are organic. Touching on his experience writing Gravity, Cuaron emphasized how the Chinese elements were "never calculated." "You cannot calculate co-production in terms of the content." China has "an amazing opportunity now not to follow models, but to create new models, and also to create models that are diverse." In this sense, Cuaron was arguing for Chinese co-productions that don’t simply work to appease international audiences, but that honestly draw from Chinese cultural elements to play to local Chinese markets. With such a strong and healthy local market, Cuaron believes that Chinese cinema can utilize that advantage "as a launching pad for the rest of the world."
Intriguingly, Cuaron noted that he was more interested "in doing a film in China from the standpoint of Chinese content and Chinese languages, rather than trying to force a co-production with a shoehorn."
The forum closed with a signing ceremony for Stone’s project The Art of War and a hand-printing activity with the various filmmakers.
