Sixth French Film Panorama in China

The Film Festival, which becomes more and more a fixed feature in the Chinese cultural calendar, will this year be held in the Chinese capital of Beijing, as well as in Shanghai, Chengdu, and Guangzhou. As the Chinese market is becoming more and more important to the industrialized nations, the French seem to be much more aware of its importance to their cultural exports than other nations. With these festivals every year, they are stealing a march on other film exporting countries.

A selection of the most recent French film productions is presented to the Chinese public during this month long festival. The audience is invited to watch in several cinemas and multiplexes an anthology of new films reflecting the diversity of genres at which the French film industry excels. These films are presented in the original French spoken version and subtitled in Chinese; the public viewings are followed by discussions of the attending actors and directors with the attending public.

An artistic delegation headed by Juliette Binoche, the world famous actress, and further composed of a dozen directors and actors all of an equal international renown visited China for the first part of the festival. The actors and filmmakers are accompanied by distributors and producers, as the selling and distributing in China of these and future films are the obvious aim of the festival.

To give the festival an even wider appeal, Sina.com and CCTV6 provide coverage of the event with TV and internet platforms with the aid and attendance of further French actors and directors.

The official opening ceremony took place on Thursday, April 9th, in Beijing. In the presence of Juliette Binoche, Romain Duris, and director Cédric Klapisch, the film ‘Paris’ by Cédric Klapisch was shown as a figure head event. After this presentation in the capital, the artistic team is going to meet the Chinese public in Shanghai, Chengdu and Guangzhou.

This promotion of the French films for buyers, the media, and the Chinese public will also present the new icons of French film productions with a perspective to a wider dissemination of French films in the Chinese market. The importance of this market to France is reflected by the high standing of the delegation sent to Beijing, but is further highlighted by the contributors who made this festival possible: Société Générale, LVT, Groupama, Gan Foundaton for Cinema, Air France, China Southern, Carrefour, Novotel Peace Beijing, Sofitel Hyland, the French Cultural Centre, and the Alliance Française.

French films with their high emphasis on quality in scripts, acting, and directing seem to get a much higher acclaim from the Chinese than the trashier Hollywood and Bollywood productions. If this is due to a higher quality requirement of the Chinese viewer, or to the fact that France has the better marketing concept in China, remains to be seen.