Silk Road brings China, Cannes in Bucharest

The 8th edition of the film festival entitled Les Films de Cannes a Bucharest (Cannes Film Festival in Bucharest) is an opportunity for Bucharesters to get more familiarized with the latest Chinese cinema productions.

Among several films, "The Chinese Widow" screened in Bucharest Sunday evening, is the star of this edition.

"I am organizing this film festival because I want to show what is relevant. I prolong and consolidate an audience for what has been already acknowledged as value in Cannes," said famous Romanian director Cristian Mungiu, three times winner of Cannes prizes and president of the 2017 Shanghai International Film Festival.

"Ten years ago, when my generation and myself were winning prizes in Cannes, people at distance couldn't know exactly what was Cannes festival. So I thought it was imperative to bring the atmosphere here in Bucharest and I arranged with the film selector from Cannes to bring the films here. Since 2010, the audience of the festival has been increasing," he said.

China is now attracting directors and producers, especially now when China is actively promoting cooperation in various fields, including in movie industry, along the Silk Road, said Mungiu.

"I chose 'The Chinese Widow' because I liked it very much when I was in the jury in Shanghai, and this film allows me, on the one hand, to introduce directors who won prizes in Cannes and on the other hand, to introduce new cinemas from parts of the world still unfamiliar to us, but very visible in the industry."

The Chinese Widow is a 2017 Chinese war drama film directed by Danish Director Bille August, starring Liu Yifei and Emile Hirsch. The story is told through the heart-wrenching love story between a WWII American pilot who crash lands in China after a bombing run on Tokyo and a young Chinese widow who saves him.

The film premiered at the 2017 Shanghai International Film Festival as the opening film.

Mungiu explained, "the trend is changing. Before, directors were imposing themselves after Cannes by making films in America, now they are making films in China, which is a tremendous market. It is very interesting to introduce to the public something unconceivable before -- directors and producers who have no knowledge about Chinese realities but go there to make films because they find the necessary conditions."

Sun Peng, Chairwoman and CEO of Zhejiang Roc Picture and the producer of The Chinese Widow, confessed that she had watched lots of films before she realized that "Bille August was the perfect director for my film".

"I found similarities between our worlds in terms of ideas, story, characters, plot ... so we decided to work together. We spent more than 4 years only to write the script. Then, we reunited our production teams, and creation teams from 7 nations," she said.

Sun found Cristian Mungiu an extremely professional and inspirational director and she "will definitely work with him later on. I am also impressed by his charity actions and this is indeed a duty for film professionals, not only telling stories about people but actually helping people."

Mungiu admitted that he contemplated working with the Chinese film-making industry, but "firstly, there are many things to learn about that part of the world".

"One major aspect for us to learn to conceive is the dozens of millions of consumers of the Chinese market, which puts a pressure on us, because the Chinese market is developing like the American one, around the need for the box-office success which will determine the success of the film."

"While we, the ones awarded in Cannes, are used to a sort of radicalism in film-making, in an attempt to expand the limits of cinema as a form of art, going off the beaten track that usually ensures the box-office success! We'll have to reconcile our radicalism with the Chinese conservative, classical market," Mungiu said.

The Chinese market is extremely attractive because "the number of cinephiles is huge, only the niche of the cinema connoisseurs is 100 times larger than our market of consumers, and we can exploit this niche", explained Mungiu.

"Apart from cinema halls, China has cinephile people who are film consumers on their own, watching cassettes in groups, and know in detail the entire cinema and the films being produced by the rest of the world."

Mungiu thought that China has the potential to become a huge market for "the European cinemas that are not in English and are not doing very well economically, as national markets are small".

Remembering his position of president of the Shanghai International Film Festival in 2017, Mungiu confessed that he enjoyed all the winner Chinese films and these films were actually enjoyed by all the members of the jury, who turned out to share core values despite their different cultural tastes.

"Films can be excellent beyond the opinions of a jury in a festival. Participation in festivals does not necessarily reflect the value or the later opinion of the audience, this is just a manner to market films. Films have an intrinsic value, that's why they have impact upon the audience."

Moreover, Mungiu admits he loves the new Chinese productions. "The best part of my being in Shanghai Film Festival is the fact that I met a lot of Chinese producers and I am now receiving amazing Chinese films that usually do not reach us, thus getting to know better the Chinese contemporary cinema."

In this context, Mungiu mentions a film that he liked "very much" -- A Gentle Night, directed by Qu Yang, screened in Bucharest these days during Les Films de Cannes a Bucarest.

"This year I was in the jury in Cannes and we gave an award to this film! I liked so much this Chinese director that I recommended him to my sales manager for the next film he will make with French support."

Chinese films are susceptible to enjoy vast success in Europe, stressed Mungiu.

The discussion with director Mungiu reveals that the Chinese film market has a huge potential and looks irresistible. Cooperation in film-making is beneficial for everyone, both culturally and economically.