Bridging the Dragon, together with the European Film Market (EFM), presented the 3rd Sino-European Co-production Seminar during the last edition of the Berlinale.
The first part of the panel, moderated by Patrick Frater of Variety and organized with the support of Chinese Film Market, offered an updated look at the situation of the film market in China. Producer Shan Dongbing recalled that part of the local industry is not yet ready for more sophisticated films, but that this situation is quickly changing. This is due to a slowdown in box office results which led to reevaluating the quality of films and opening up its market to foreign productions. Wang Yu, editor of the Chinese Film Market and producer, underlined how the shares of foreign films in China have increased over the past year and that these will become increasingly present on the Chinese market.
The second part of the seminar, organized with the support of AFTP (Asian Film and Television Promotion), focused on the challenges of casting Chinese actors for co-productions. On the one hand, Poping Auyeung, who has been casting Chinese roles for large Hollywood productions for years, is forced to select the actors for these films with the main limitation being that they know how to speak English perfectly, thus eliminating a priori actors who are more suitable for a role. On the other hand, Jerry Ye, founder of the giant Huayi Brothers, was keen to underline the importance of choosing from the beginning the main market to which a film is aimed. If you decide to produce a film for the Chinese market, then it is important that the actors speak Chinese.
As underlined by the director of the EFM Matthjas Wouter Knol the seminars branded Bridging the Dragon have become an annual event within the framework of the Market and a point of reference for European producers who try their hand at producing films in China.
