People wearing face masks watch a movie in a cinema as it reopens following the Covid-19 outbreak in Shanghai, on July 20, 2021.After constantly revising and submitting their film for review, it took Chinese producer Jessica Wong and her team four years to have their previous feature released in China.
But the drop off has been dramatic, and as of Monday, box office sales in China had reached just 28.51 billion yuan this year, according to ticketing platform Taopiaopiao. "The Chinese film industry is now very risky in terms of venture capital, and hot money is staying away from the industry," said thirty-something Wong, who produces drama series for online platforms.
As of early November, 49 imported films had been released in mainland China, including features from Hong Kong and Taiwan, representing the lowest in the past decade having slipped from 73 in the whole of 2021, 136 in 2019 and 71 in 2012, according to Taopiaopiao. Cinemas in several Chinese cites, though, have recently reopened after weeks of closures as part of measures to ease coronavirus restrictions, although film-goers are still required to provide a negative polymerase chain reaction test and also venues must still limit their capacity.
"Whether it's a person or a country, we must always keep a way to communicate with the world and keep in touch with the world." The film, directed by Chinese filmmaker Li Ruijun, examines the impact of the country's economic growth and rapid urbanisation through the lives of a downtrodden couple in a rural village in the northwestern Gansu province.
One of Wang's non-fiction scripts has been picked up by a large Beijing film and television group, which even confirmed the co-director and actors, but the project is currently on hold due to the coronavirus and long censor process."I came to Canada hoping to learn the market-oriented operation and storytelling of the film industry, but now I know that what I have learned here is becoming difficult to use in China, as long as there is a tough censorship system," she said.