“2018 Chinese Films New Journey” Forum was successfully held on the afternoon of April 20, 2018 as part of the Film Market of the 8th Beijing International Film Festival. Jointly organized by Chinese Film Market and Rongyi Media, “Chinese Films New Journey” Forum ushered in its fourth session this year.
Firstly, Wang Yu, founder and editor–in-chief of CHINESE FILM MARKET, president of Ray Production, gave a yearly summarization of the 2017 Chinese film market. CFM is an English magazine for film industry professionals both at home and abroad, and focuses on the Chinese film market. The magazine cooperates with the International Class A film festivals, covering Berlin, Cannes, Venice, Tokyo, the United States AFM, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing and other international film festivals and film markets. It is dedicated to promoting the interaction between Chinese and foreign film industries and the development of Chinese-language films. Wang Yu analyzed the basic situation of the Chinese film market in 2017 in terms of box office, theater admissions, and screening sessions with a large amount of detailed data. He pointed out that the 2017 Chinese film market had a tendency of diversification of film types, and the foreign films have played an important role in the Chinese film market in recent years.
Based on the hot spots and development trends in the Chinese film market in the past year, the Forum set up two main topics: “The Internationalization Trend of Chinese Films” and “The Ebbing of Chinese Films – The Content is King” In the “Internationalization Trend of Chinese Films”, host Wang Yu and other guests discussed the current status quo and existing problems of Chinese films’ overseas distribution. On the second topic of the forum, “The Ebbing of Chinese Films – The Content is King”, discussions were carried out by Guo Ke, director of TWENTY TWO, a documentary film with a box office of over 100 million in 2017, Zhao Hantang, director and leading actor of art film SEVENTY-SEVEN DAYS, and Lu Wei, producer of PATHS OF THE SOUL, and founder and CEO of Sky Film. Li Xia, famous hostess, film producer and CEO of Rongyi Media, hosted the second round table discussion – “Nirvana of Chinese Web Content”. Liu Kailuo, Vice President of Greater Youku Group, Alibaba Culture and Entertainment Group, Bai Yicong, Founder and CEO of Linghe Culture Media (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., and Yin Chao, Founder & CEO of Tmeng.cn, participated in the discussion.