"It's a pity that "The Sea of People" is a pity."

"It's different now than I was back then, even if I won the best director in Venice, I don't have much influence in China."

On the plane back to China, Wu Yuan and representatives of China Film Group were chatting about everything about this Venice Film Festival.

During the festival, he couldn't talk about it because he was the president of the jury, but now that the festival is over, he can finally speak freely.

Wu Yuan's sigh is called, timing is really important.

In the first few years of the millennium, the number of movies released in China every year was not large, and only three or five movies were released a month.

At that time, there was not much news about movies, after all, there would not be so much news to the media when the production was low.

So when Wu Yuan won the best director in Berlin with "The Undertaker", it was a national sensation, and various large and small media rushed to report it, and movie theaters also rushed to chase this movie, which made "The Undertaker" a box office hit after its release.

And now, times have changed.

Now hundreds of movies are produced every year, and even if most of them can't be released properly, there are too many movies left behind after the big waves, and there are more than a dozen or twenty movies piled up every month.

There is no shortage of news reports in the entertainment industry in major media, and there is no shortage of movies in cinemas.

In addition, it is now completely the era of commercial films, and literary films have long ceased to be the center of attention.

also won the three best director awards in Europe, but "The Sea of People" and director Cai Shangjun did not cause much discussion in China at all.

Even if Xinhua News Agency personally wrote a manuscript to report the news of this year's Venice International Film Festival, the effect was very average.

The big three in Europe no longer have so much attention at home.

In other words, everyone pays more attention to the red carpet shows of stars from all walks of life at the three major openings in Europe, but they don't care much about who will win the final awards.

Fan Xiaopang's dragon robe, Li Binbin's Fuzi dress and other styles will be bought in large quantities in China and swiped all over the Internet.

But no one cares whether they actually brought their works to Venice, whether they were shortlisted for the main competition unit, and whether they won awards in the end.

"yes, times are different." The representative of China Film who came to participate in this Venice Film Festival also said with some emotion: "Now even the film is not easy to buy and sell." ”

"In the past, it was possible to make money by batching films, but now it is becoming more and more difficult to make money by batching films."

Now the domestic film industry is not like the situation of the big cats in the past, and the theater schedule is full every month, even in the off-season months, there are more Chinese New Year films than in the first few years of the millennium.

The audience has more choices, and there are more domestic film productions, which also forces several mainland distributors with film approval qualifications such as China Film to no longer care much about film approval.

Ten years ago, Han Dong, the deputy general manager and vice chairman, had to personally lead a team to Cannes, Berlin, and Venice to buy films and help mainland films contact overseas distributors.

Now, China Film only needs to send a middle-level representative of the company.

The income from copyright transactions has been reduced from half of China Film's revenue to less than 10%.

In a way, that's a good thing.

However, the matter of buying movies in Europe must continue to be done, this is the tilt of national policy, and the batch of films in the mainland cannot only be bought and docked.

It just so happened that this China Film representative was responsible for the import and export of films in China Film Group.

Wu Yuan followed the topic and asked: "Representative Li, I heard that the Sino-US film cooperation treaty signed when we joined the WTO is going to be changed?" ”

"Lao Mei's side is a little dissatisfied with the results of the previous negotiations?"

As early as August 1994, the authorities issued a document clearly mentioning the import of 10 films that "basically reflect the achievements of the world's outstanding civilization and express the achievements of contemporary films".

Of course, 10 is just an approximation, and it can be flexibly mastered in actual operation.

But what is a film that can express the "achievements of contemporary cinema"?

Obviously, that's mainly the Hollywood blockbuster in the United States.

For one, the U.S. blockbuster can bring rich economic benefits to all parties.

Second, the imported films of that year really opened the eyes of Chinese audiences.

It should be admitted that the prosperity of the Chinese film market has contributed to the "stimulation" brought by American blockbusters.

Films such as "Titanic" and "The Mummy" were introduced under this policy, and they also achieved sensational box office and discussion in China, broadening the horizons of domestic audiences.

Later, in 2001, China joined the WTO and signed a series of agreements, including one agreement.

Without prejudice to the consistency of Huaxia's film management regulations, Huaxia will be allowed to import films for theatrical screening in the form of account sharing from the time of accession, and the number of such imports shall be 20 films per year.

This quota of 20 films per year is indispensable.

Of course, most of them are still Hollywood movies, and occasionally one or two will be European or Japanese and Korean films.

However, these agreements refer to films that "enter the country in the form of account sharing", and the batch of films that are bought out at a fixed price are not counted.

So in fact, the number of foreign films released in the mainland every year is far more than 20, but only 20 of them can be divided, and other films are generally bought out at low prices.

In the past, the domestic box office market was not large, and 20 Hollywood movies could be introduced into China through account-sharing channels a year, and they could already earn a large part of the domestic box office market, so when this agreement was signed, Lao Mei was very satisfied.

However, the world is volatile, ten years have passed, the domestic film market has multiplied several times, and only 20 part-of-account films are introduced a year, which has caused Hollywood to lose a lot of market in the mainland.

Many Hollywood blockbusters, because there is no quota for account-sharing films, either choose to sell cheaply and take the route of batch films, or simply give up the mainland market and not release them in the mainland.

How cheap is the price of batch films, China Film and Shanghai Film generally only spend tens of thousands of dollars, and at most hundreds of thousands of dollars will be bought out, which can be called the price of cabbage, and Hollywood will not be happy with movies above A-level production.

Seeing that the agreement signed when the WTO accessed the WTO has reached the 10-year agreement period, whether it is China or Haolaiwu, there is now news that the supplementary agreement will be re-signed, and at least the mainland of China will increase the account by 20 more every year to import films.

So Wu Yuan also talked to the representative of China Film about it.

"We don't have to say that." Deputy Li shook his head and said, "We have to come forward and talk to the US side." ”

"And it seems that a delegation will be formed to talk to the American side."

"A great director like Director Wu, who is well-known in both China and the United States, should also become a member of the delegation to talk about this matter related to the cooperation between the two countries in the film market in the next ten years."

"Han Dong will definitely go when the time comes." (End of chapter)