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The State Council’s General Office Guideline on How to Boost the Development of the Film Industry

[Editor’s Note: On January 21, 2010, the State Council’s General Office of the Chinese Communist Party issued a Guideline on How to Boost the Development of the Film Industry SCS (2010) document No. 9. [1] The following is the summary of the contents.] [1]

Movies are one form of recreational culture that the people deeply love.  The film industry is a culture industry that is high-tech, and highly profitable, with a low resource consumption and little environmental pollution. Therefore, it is of great significance to vigorously develop the film industry for the construction of Socialist culture … for the expansion of the Chinese culture’s international competitiveness and influence, and for strengthening the nation’s cultural soft power. …  In order to thoroughly implement the 17th CCP Congress’ important plan of advancing the development and prosperity of the socialist culture, to earnestly implement the central government’s strategy to deal with the international financial crisis, to maintain a stable and rapid economic growth, to accelerate the development of the culture industry, and to boost the development of the film industry, under the consent of the State Council, (the office) now proposes the following guidelines.
 
General requirements

Under the guidance of Deng Xiaoping Theory and the "Three Represents," … firmly grasp the correct direction …  to spread the Socialist core value system, and walk the path of developing the film industry with Chinese characteristics.

The basic principles

1. Persist in the right direction, scientific development. Accurately seize the film industry’s two major characteristics of both ideology and a cultural commodity product; unleash the dual function of entertainment and education.

2. Adhere to the principle of being people-oriented, serving the public.

3. Operate according to the market, develop according to the government.

4.  Break through on major projects; advance as a whole.

The development goals

The overall objective is: by the end of the year 2015 … to establish an operating system … and an administrative system for the film industry, and to establish a digital distribution and movie playing network covering urban and rural areas; to comprehensively enhance production creativity, management capacity, technological innovation, and public service capacity, as well as international dissemination capability. 

1. Creativity, management skills and brand influence must significantly improve.

2. The supporting role of science and technology must be significantly enhanced.

3. Infrastructure must be improved significantly. Between 2009 and 2012, the transformation of digital cinema at the prefectural level should be completed, and partially done at the county level; between 2013 and 2015, the transformation of digital cinema should be completed at the county level. The eastern region and other affluent regions may lead the action. 

4. The products should be rich in content and have variety.

5. Industry efficiency must significantly improve. Economic aggregation in the film industry has an annual growth rate of 20 percent.

6. Public service capacity should be strengthened significantly. Strengthen the development of digital cinemas in rural areas and schools. … Ensure that each administrative village can play a movie every month, and ensure that each semester there will be two educational patriotic movies played for primary and secondary school students.

7. International competitiveness increases by the day. Actively push the movies to go international. Establish a movie business which has international competitiveness and has influence in the international dissemination system, so as to develop domestic movie products that have international market demand. Hold Chinese Movie Panoramas in public overseas, to participate in international film festivals and to organize commercial promotional activities overseas, to continuously improve the international influence of Chinese-made movies, to continuously improve international competitiveness and market share, and to constantly enhance the country’s cultural soft power.

Major initiatives

1. Increase creativity and massively increase productivity.

While maintaining a steady growth in volume, focus more on improving the quality … and put effort into strengthening ideology.

2. Actively nurture new enterprises. 

Accelerate the transformation of state-owned film enterprises into private or public corporations.

3. Continue to expand the scale of operation.

4. Strongly support building digital cinemas in the cities and towns.

5. Encourage greater policy support of investment and fund-raising.

6. Actively promote technology innovation.

7. Strengthen public services.

8. Strive to improve international influence.

Accelerate the development of overseas markets, increase the marketing efforts overseas to promote domestic films, expand channels, improve the network and explore channels for establishing overseas marketing systems that promote China-made films in the international mainstream film market. Support the film industry as well as movie products to participate in important international film festivals and trading markets. Prepare well and run the "Shanghai International Film Festival" and other activities. Accelerate the pace of established channels overseas to promote the "China Movie Channel" by sharing channels with others, renting cable TV networks and utilizing the Internet, and expanding the size of the user base. Actively establish a cooperation mechanism with foreign governments, international film festival exhibition organizers, film institutions, social organizations, and industry associations. Cooperate with foreign companies to produce movies and continue to hold the Chinese Film Panorama and other activities. Strive to increase international influence.

9. Continue to improve the monitoring and surveillance system. 

10. Vigorously put effort into building up the team.

Endnote:
[1] http://china.huanqiu.com/roll/2010-01/699293.html