Screen dreams

First-time director Natalie Portman joins Hollywood and European stars at Beijing International Film Festival

A biopic of an Israeli author is not something that would usually fill seats at Chinese cinemas - but that wasn't the case for A Tale of Love and Darkness.

When tickets went on sale for a showing at this year's Beijing International Film Festival, all 621 seats sold out in a flash.

Amos Oz, the subject of the film, is arguably the most famous modern Israeli writer in China, but the rush for tickets possibly had more to do with its first-time director, Natalie Portman, who held a Q&A with the audience after the screening.

"I've been interested in directing since I started work, over 25 years ago," she told journalists ahead of the film festival, which opened on April 16 and ends April 23.

Portman is among the 600 actors and filmmakers from around the world who turned out for the event, with other big names including Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore and Austrian actor Christoph Waltz.

The Israeli-American actress, who shot to fame in the 1994 thriller Leon: The Professional and went on to win a best actress Oscar for Black Swan in 2011, says she would like to work on Chinese productions in the future.

China's filmmakers like Zhang Yimou are gaining recognition in the West for "strong and powerful" movies, she says. "It would be wonderful to work with Chinese actors or filmmakers. But I have yet to work out a plan."

Portman's movie was among more than 500 scheduled during the festival, with about 90 percent of them screening for the first time on the Chinese mainland.

The films were selected from 2,329 entries from 105 countries, with submissions up more than 50 percent this year, according to festival organizers.

The Film Market, an industry expo that ran April 19 to 21, also attracted more than 200 studios and special effects companies from the United States, Britain, France, South Korea and Australia.

Huang Jianxin, a veteran director who hosted a forum on international co-productions, says Chinese studios signed 57 deals with US counterparts this year.

Tornatore, who is best known for helming The Legend of 1900 and has signed a deal to direct a feature for China's Alibaba Pictures, said at the forum he believes cinema can cross cultural and national barriers. For example, he says, he has worked with US and French filmmakers, yet hardly speaks a word of English or French.

He added that China is the only country that is still seeing big growth in the film industry, while major markets elsewhere are going in the opposite direction.

James Schamus, the producer behind Oscar-winner Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, says he believes international co-productions are evolving.

"It doesn't simply mean you hire an attractive Chinese actress to star as Mel Gibson's girlfriend and shoot the film in Shanghai. That's the old way," he says. "The new way is to use every aspect of the filmmaking business, including the creative part, to create a new Hollywood (in China)."

At another forum that touched on similar topics, Oriental DreamWorks CEO Fang Gan said Hollywood now relies more on China's talent than its money.

Kung Fu Panda 3, a joint China-US production, for example, was made in English and Mandarin, to capture nuances in both languages. Fang says a Chinese director and a star-studded cast were hired for the Chinese version to tailor it more to local audiences.

In an era when box-office records are broken on a regular basis, Chinese filmmakers could be forgiven for appearing confident about the domestic market.

The country has an estimated 35,000 screens nationwide, and Yu Dong, president of Bona Film Group, believes the number could surpass that of North America by the end of the year.

He predicts that moviegoers will continue to increase on a massive scale, with growth mainly coming from fourth- and fifth-tier cities.

xufan@chinadaily.com.cn

( China Daily European Weekly 04/22/2016 page22)