China’s Film Authority Orders All Cinemas to Screen Propaganda Films at Least Twice a Week

Hong Kong has cultivated a reputation for punching above its weight. Once producing 300 films a year, the small territory hatched global martial arts superstars like Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, Michelle Yeoh and Donnie Yen.

Rebecca Davis editorChinese director Jia Zhangke has formally launched his new venture: a filmmaking school in his native Shanxi staffed by some of China’s top industry talent, including helmers Ning Hao and Bi Gan.The Shanxi Film Academy was inaugurated in a ceremony presided over by Communist party officials and attended by major firms seeking synergies between the school’s future crop of filmmakers and their own thirst for new talent and content.

Rebecca Davis editorReporters Without Borders (RSF) ranked China fourth to last out of 180 countries on its 2021 World Press Freedom Index on Tuesday, while warning that Hong Kong journalism is also now under “grave threat.”China ranked 177th in 2019, 2020 and 2021, down from a period at 176th from 2015 to 2018.

WarnerMedia unveiled a pair of Chinese-language original series for HBO Tuesday during the first day of APOS, Asia's leading media and entertainment industry summit. The shows include period drama Legacy, created by the same team behind the blockbuster Chinese series Story of Yanxi Palace, and contemporary noir drama Trinity of Shadows, which is a co-production with Taiwanese streaming service CatchPlay.

Rebecca Davis editorJapanese animation “Detective Conan: The Scarlet Bullet” led both “Godzilla vs.

Imax CEO Rich Gelfond earned $6.9 million last year, down slightly from $7.1 million in 2019 as the pandemic shuttered theaters and Imax screens around the world.

EXCLUSIVE: Italy’s Royal House of Savoy is getting the film and TV treatment from Chinese director, writer and producer Yi Zhou who is developing both a TV series and feature based on Queen Marie-José.

Rebecca Davis editorChinese fans breathed a sigh of relief Wednesday after Warner Bros.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefMainland China youth drama “The Day is Over” was named the best Chinese-language film in the Firebird Young Cinema competition at the Hong Kong International Film Festival.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefGlobal streaming service Netflix has acquired multi-territory streaming rights to upcoming Chinese fantasy film “Super Me.” The story is an aspirational tale, combining lucid dreaming and a rags to riches plot about a struggling screenwriter.It was directed by Chong Zhang (“Fourth Wall”) and has a cast that is headed by Taiwan’s Darren Wang, along with Cao Bingkun, Song Jia and Wu Gang.The film had its world premiere in the panorama section of the 2019 edition of

Rebecca Davis editorChina’s Huace Pictures this week unveiled its upcoming film lineup, which includes a new project from young arthouse filmmaker Bi Gan (“Kaili Blues”) and sequels to its Chinese New Year hit “A Writer’s Odyssey.”Founded in 2014, Huace Pictures is the newer outgrowth of Shenzhen-listed, Hangzhou-headquartered Zhejiang Huace Film and TV, founded in 2005.

TheHong Kong International Film Festivalhas scrapped its opening-night world premiere of Where the Wind Blows, a widely anticipated crime thriller directed by local industry veteran Philip Yung.

It certainly wasn’t a laughing matter when Eric Andre and Lil Rel Howery had a knife pulled on them while filming their prank-based comedy “Bad Trip”.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief“The Six,” a documentary film shining a searchlight on the little-known Chinese aspects of the familiar Titanic story is headed for theatrical release next month in the Middle Kingdom.

EXCLUSIVE: Fresh off its world premiere in the Berlin International Film Festival’s competition program, where it won the Silver Bear Jury Prize, Maria Speth’s feature documentary Mr Bachmann And His Class has sold into multiple territories.

The Beijing International Film Festival, which typically takes place in mid-April but has yet to announce its plans for 2021, is considering a postponement to August. Organizers are hoping that by late summer the pandemic will have subsided to an extent that international filmmakers and guests are able to travel to China to participate in the event, sources in contact with organizers of the government-backed festival told The Hollywood Reporteron Friday.