The Lacking Diversity in Mainland Films

In Senses of Cinema's website, I found an interesting report from Adrian Danks:A City of Forgetting: The 32^nd Hong Kong International Film Festival. This report provides me an access to review the films of Asian region at last year. In his report(A City of Forgetting: The 32nd Hong Kong International Film Festival ), Danks talked about his opinions about this festival and some screening which I didn't have a chance to see.

According to Danks, the films in this festival include films in different genres. I began to recall the films I have seen or heard about last year in China. Except The Sun Also Rises from Wen Jiang, there is no other film mentioned in this article that I have heard about in mainland film festivals. Basically, for most of mainland films, to me, documentaries and experimental films have more artistic value than narrative films. Firstly, documentary especially scientific documentary is my favorite genre. However, they are rare and almost inaccessible in theater but only on television sometimes. Some of early mainland documentaries I have seen are low quality because of lacking of finical support. Although I aware that documentaries have the same problem in most of countries because they are not produced for the commercial purpose. When it comes to experimental film, I have no idea what mainland experimental films look like since some narrative films usually as disorienting as experimental film. After the encounters of experimental films in Milwaukee, I disagree with the point that some films are thought to be experimental films only because their contexts are controversy.

Danks mentioned that the sameness lies in most of mainland Chinese films that he saw in this festival. Although I have not seen all those films, unfortunately I agree with Danks about the sameness in mainland Chinese films. Briefly, the lacking of encouragement and the support of the government cause the poorness in cinema diversity. Basically, only the films produced by very famous filmmakers and said to be high-budget can be seen in most of the cities, which actually are in pretty poor quality. The famous directors have more advantages in circulation of films. The Sun Also Rises from Wen Jiang is more or less experimental compared to other mainstream films. And it is fortunate that he is famous enough to make his film to be screened in the theaters. As a matter of fact, there are many promising films produced by unfamiliar filmmakers every year in China. But because of unknown reason, their works can barely be screened in public. To sum up, the lacking of diversity in mainland cinemas are the results of above reasons and would be impacted by similar reasons in the future.

However, I still expect to see more non-mainstream films from Asian region. It is not because of the boring mainstream films, but the hope that to extend the life of cinema in China.