Wanda Film Chen Zhixi： Excavating the charm of light and shadow to make young people fall in love with movies

1905 movie network feature Gain insight into the film industry and embrace Chinese films. In 2023, "China Film Report" "Blue Feather Parlor" launched the two sessions to specially plan "Dialogue Spring", inviting representatives of ten film companies to jointly promise a beautiful vision for Chinese films to move forward in the wind. From welcoming spring to entering spring. Now, we once again start with the prosperous Spring Festival stall and join hands with filmmakers to dream of 2024, when Chinese films are blooming.

"China Film Report" "Blue Feather Parlor" 2024 Two Sessions specially planned – the eighth episode of "Dialogue Spring" entered Wanda Film. The whole industry chain layout and development, closer to the audience, listen to the audience’s voice to feed back creation. Tonight, the host of the movie channel, Lan Yu, talked to the chairperson and president of Wanda Film joint stock company, let the audience walk into the cinema, walk into the movie, and feel the charm of light and shadow making dreams.

Discover and cooperate with new directors to supplement industry talents

The new work "Flowers Bloom" will be turned on for the second time

In the past period of time, the filmmaker Chen Zhixi has completed a career change – from "tens of billions of beautiful women producers" to become the chairperson of Wanda Film, the head of a film company with a whole industry chain. Wanda Film has always had a special emotion for her.

Located in the central district of Beijing’s East Fourth Ring Road, Wanda Studios has hosted most movie premieres. The studio has accompanied the filmmaker’s growth. From the very beginning, "almost all the premieres of films I have produced and invested in in my career have been in this studio."

Chen Zhixi has participated in the creation of many directors’ first works in the past, from the director’s "Lost in Thailand", the director’s "Pancake Man", and later Jia Ling’s. For her, after taking over Wanda Film, she listed the project planning for the next three years. In addition to cooperating with mature directors, she hopes to accompany more young filmmakers.

Wanda Film launched the "Elite + Program" in 2017, dedicated to discovering and cultivating professional talents in the film and television industry, and fully promoting the upgrading of China’s film industry. So far, 11 directors have been signed, as well as hundreds of screenwriters. "I hope to use my experience of accompanying many directors in the creation of their first films to accompany more young directors, so as to fill the market with more good content."

From a pure producer to the current head of a film company, in Chen Zhixi’s view, "launching some new directors and screenwriters for the industry and replenishing industry talents is the most basic work I can do."

She hopes to summarize her past experience and explore and judge the possibility of directors in more dimensions, "such as the director’s values and field control ability, to judge what kind of works this director will present to the audience and the market in the future." Chen Zhixi hopes to help these directors choose the theme and genre that best suits their talents as their debut films, so that they can succeed quickly.

Looking back at Chen Zhixi’s creative resume, she accompanied Xu Zheng, Dapeng and other filmmakers to realize the transformation from actor to director. At that time, they were all in their thirties and full of infinite possibilities. Today, Chen Zhixi looks at the actors around the age of 30, "There are three people who are very promising. I am already chatting with them, helping them choose topics, and seeing if there is a chance to move from the front to the back in the future."

In addition to the newcomer power, Wanda Cinemas will continue to work with mature and experienced directors.

After collaborating with Jia Ling on "Hello, Li Huanying," the two will continue to work together on the new novel "Flowers Blossom." "Half of the film has been completed, and we will continue to shoot the other half." At present, the entire film crew is also choosing the time and shooting location, "I hope to finish the film and meet the audience as soon as possible."

The whole industry chain excavates the charm of light and shadow

Awaken the enthusiasm of young audiences to fall in love with cinemas

As a film company with a whole industry chain, Wanda Film continues from the creative end to the screening end, which also allows Chen Zhixi, the head of the company, to have more opportunities to enter the audience and communicate with the audience. "In the past, more of my work was to accompany the directors to make scripts, how to set the plate and code the box office. At the stage of promotion, the previous distribution was also dependent on the outside. Now, Wanda Film has its own screening hall, which can feed back our films through the studios of the entire theater chain."

At present, there are 916 Wanda Studios across the country, and among the top 100 theaters in the national box office during the Spring Festival, Wanda accounts for as many as 67.

Chen Zhixi said that in the future, Wanda Film will continue to strengthen the high standards and high platform of the entire Wanda Studios, "continue to improve our service awareness and service quality, and create a very good viewing environment for the audience."

She was also thinking about how she used to feel like walking into a movie theater was like Chinese New Year because of the aroma of popcorn, so how could she make today’s young people fall in love with movies?

Awakening the enthusiasm of young people and making them willing to go to the cinema to watch movies has become a topic she and Wanda Film are eager to solve.

We are willing to learn more about movies and the charm of light and shadow. "Chen Zhixi hopes that under the environment of Wanda Film, she can take the initiative to change some business conditions, so that the theater can have more life-like and richer scene simulations.

"For example, in’The Trilogy of Consecrated Gods’, the props are so beautiful and the costumes are so beautiful. But after the movie is filmed, the audience is far away from them. As the end point of the movie, can we really hold some Consecrated Gods props for the director? I think that by transporting all those exquisite props and costumes to the theater, the audience can reach a deeper dimension of understanding and love for the movie."

The possibility of exploring cinemas also affects creators’ development at the front end. Judging from the current situation of the Chinese film market, a large proportion depends on box office revenue, 8% relies on Internet copyright recycling, and a very small part relies on derivatives.

In Chen Zhixi’s opinion, derivatives may be one of the paths for the recovery of film revenue in the future. "We hope that the life cycle of movies will become longer, and there can be more series movies." In particular, Wanda Film is currently developing and creating animated films in the "Bao Gong" series, and plans to create a more complete derivative system. "Animated films have more advantages in derivatives."

The animated film planned for this year’s Qixi Festival will be one of Wanda Film’s summer publicity projects. After the accumulation of the past two works, the film "will definitely have a very good derivative performance, which will really make the audience and characters, and even the film have emotional communication and interaction."