(from left to right) Liu Yiwei, Li Shaohong, Lin Hua and Jia Zhangke. [Photo: sina.com]
The Directors' Forum held by the China Film Directors' Guild took place in Beijing on April 6, sina.com reports.
Li Shaohong, president of the guild, hosted the forum which was attended by Jia Zhanagke, Zhang Meng, Xu Haofeng, Wang Hongwei and Du Jiayi.
Participants discussed the influence of online literature while sharing their stories about filmmaking.
All of these directors agreed that online literature shows strong influence on film and television productions. Some of the high-grossing movies and high-rating dramas were adapted from popular online novels.
But Jia insists on depicting real life stories in his movies and this is something the Chinese sixth generation directors are pursuing. He also said he is now preparing for a new script. It is about the so-called "Rich Second Generation" of China, referring to the younger generation who were born into rich families. Although the director had no interest in online stories, he set the story's background in a microblog world. The leading character will develop his own script by communicating with his Weibo followers and netizens.
Zhang Meng and Du Jiayi, winners of this year's China Film Directors' Guild Awards, shared their views on film-financing.
Zhang received a good reputation rather than satisfying box office income for his black comedy "Piano in A Factory." He also experienced financing difficulties twice during the making of two of his films, including "Piano in A Factory". Zhang took out fewer loans than he needed just because his leading man is not famous enough. Beside this, he also said they are in need of good scripts and writers.
Others raised problems on distribution and publishing. However, the sixth generation directors, who have taken over the film market at the moment, didn't care that much about payoff. So these would be big problems for them.