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PRODUCTION France

Franco-Chinese co-production: the 11 Flowers experience

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The first film made as part of the Franco-Chinese co-production agreement signed in 2010, Wang Xiaoshuai’s 11 Flowers will have its world premiere this Sunday at Toronto in the Special Presentations section and will then screen in competition at San Sebastian. 65% produced by China (through Chinese Shadows and WXS Productions) and 35% by France (Didar Domehri for Full House and Arte France Cinéma), the latest title by the director who picked up honours at Cannes in 2005 and Berlin in 2008 and 2011 is sold internationally by Films Distribution. We look at the adventure from the Chinese side with producer Isabelle Glachant (Chinese Shadows), who has lived in Beijing for many years.

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A first experience
Isabelle Glachant: "It was a new experience for the Chinese authorities for it was the first majority Chinese co-production with a foreign country. We had to explain, in particular the procedure for getting approval because the Chinese had to apply to the National Film and Moving Image Centre (CNC). It wasn’t complicated, but unusual for them."

Censorship
"In the context of our usual European co-productions, nobody asks for anything to be cut out or altered, neither from the script, nor the completed film, but this is the case in China and it poses problems for production. For 11 Flowers, we weren’t asked for any alteration of the script: the censorship was just the approval and authorisation for shooting the script. The completed film stage, which is the second censorship, is the moment which often poses problems for co-productions because the Chinese authorities want to see the film finished, mixed, and calibrated. But they usually always ask for alterations to the image and/or sound. So, going back to the post-production is an additional cost that the Chinese producers are used to organising, but not the co-producers. Another complication with the post-production which was being done in France, was when it was necessary to send some element to China and wait for it to be viewed with delays of about two weeks, bearing in mind that they’re not the same censorship committees for the script and the completed film, so there can be completely different interpretations. Censorship can become a problem for co-productions if the film is in re-editing for several months or several years (as was the case for Wang Xiaoshuai’s So Close to Paradise). Fortunately, this wasn’t the case for 11 Flowers, but they asked us to make some cuts to the sound and images."

The future of Franco-Chinese co-productions
"Thanks to the co-production agreement, French producers now know that they can go to shoot films more easily in China and that even those films which would perhaps have had trouble in the past in being qualified as French will now have approval. On the Chinese side, 80-90% of all co-productions with foreign countries are with Hong Kong and people like John Woo and Tsui Hark who go to shoot films in China. So the agreement with France won’t revolutionise their habits, but it will enable auteur film directors like Jia Zhangke, Lou Ye and Wang Xiaoshuai to put together co-productions in a way they were no longer able to. For there have been co-productions with France, but they weren’t approved by the CNC. So these films could no longer be made because of the drying-up of financing for auteur films. They now have the opportunity to access French funding and within a more simplified framework."

Americans, Europeans and the Chinese market
"The Americans have been present in China for a very long time (which isn’t the case of the Europeans) and have tried by different means to get on to the market. With the steps the Chinese government has implemented to protect its market, particularly the import quotas for US films, the Americans can’t distribute more films and are limited in the takings they recover (13.5%). So, and this isn’t new, they try to produce on site. They try at the same time to gain greater access to the Chinese market and to make films more similar to American cinema in order to prepare Chinese audiences for the other films they have to distribute on the territory. The Americans are just more aggressive at the moment because the Chinese market is expanding and it is unthinkable for them not to have an important share in this market.

European cinema has an important card to play. It is already very present, even if only though pirate DVDs. But the quotas that protect the Chinese market from an American deluge also prevent the Europeans from entering. Chinese exhibitors only see things from a very short-term perspective, but when the number of movie theatres expands, European cinema will represent a broadening of possibilities. Because viewers are also starting to grow a little tired of Chinese productions. Thanks to EuropaCorp, it is also possible to show Chinese exhibitors that European films can bring in a lot of admissions. European cinema, which is already very present, must play the diversity card and gradually other films will gain access to the Chinese market."

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(Translated from French)

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