China Film Foundation Ignores the Obvious

HONG KONG – Movies from the Chinese mainland never will achieve world-class status while the people making them must tolerate political interference and censorship from Beijing.

For the same reason, most clever movie moguls from the United States, India, Europe and elsewhere won’t seek out Chinese-mainland partners for film-making projects.

That’s stating the obvious – or so most people would think. But publicly at least, China Film Foundation chairman Li Qiankuan, a long-time mainland-movie director, prefers to blatantly ignore the insurmountable obstacle posed by censorship.

Recently, Li delivered a speech aimed at promoting international movie-making, notably between China and the United States. He spoke to a diverse industry audience during FILMART, the Hong Kong International Film and TV Market, a trade fair at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.

“How great it is for the East and West cultures when you can put them together to create a wonderful movie culture,” said 69-year-old Li. Increasingly, Hollywood movies contain “Chinese elements”. Usually, that means characters, settings or plot aspects that appeal to movie audiences in China, the world’s most populous nation.

But Li proposes much more: “It’s a great dream that we can get together without the different races, countries and locations and all of us put forth our best efforts to contribute,” he said. “To realize this great movie dream, we must conduct exchanges and co-operate to have more color and excitement.

“Technology has improved so much that the world gets smaller and smaller, which shows the need for us to get together. Movie people from China are very pragmatic in looking at how we can achieve such a future.

“Looking ahead, I can say that between Chinese film-makers and American film-makers there will be such great opportunities for us to work together and to develop together. There are lots of stories in China that we need the screen to tell. China has lots of characters and people that we need the screen to interpret. We have lots of scenery and film locations waiting for United States and China film-makers to work together and show. This great, diverse garden of movie-making locations waits for us.”

With a diplomatic touch, Li praised creative efforts across the Pacific. “It’s such a great movie industry that America can produce…,” he said. “We recognize that America’s movie industry is very strong, and we see that movies from Hollywood have made great contributions to the world civilization.”

But China, with its 1.3 billion people, ancient history and sparks of creative genius could do even better, if only its entertainment and media industries were left alone, allowed to work fearlessly and at full intensity.

The Li speech also delivered some typical Communist-style gibberish: “Ten years ago, I attended a forum in Hollywood…. I made a statement that ‘Under the same blue sky, movie products sit together….’ Today, we are friends of America and friends of China, all sitting together. We’re looking at the same subject, how we can work together and join together to create a win-win situation….

“We need to build up a bridge between the film-makers on both sides. Chinese film-makers will have the ability to work together to build a greater bridge. Chinese people have a saying that ‘if friends hold hands together, they can make dreams come true.’ ”