China's future movie and TV stars face tough competition for university places

Future stars of China's film and TV industry were lined up at the gate of Beijing Film Academy (BFA) this week, waiting for the start of the highly competitive undergraduate entrance exams. The exams will be the first step in the journey for some of them to become popular household names.

Xinhua reports that around 10,000 people are competing for just 50 places in the BFA acting department program. Other departments, such as directing and screenwriting, are also highly competitive, with only half of one percent of applicants offered a place.

More than 45,000 students applied to study at BFA this year, which is an 18 percent increase from last year.

BFA was the training ground for some of China's most well regarded film industry heavyweights, including director Chen Kaige, best known for his films Farewell My Concubine (1993) and Together (2002), and Zhang Yimou, who directed the critically acclaimed Hero (2002) and House of Flying Daggers (2004).

Yang Zhengbao has been studying screenwriting at BFA since 2015. He still remembers the day he sat his entrance exam. "I felt alone, but hopeful. The exam was a little bit strange, not like the gaokao (China's college entrance exam). But the teachers were all very nice, and they gave me confidence."

In Shanghai, almost 31,000 applicants applied for an undergraduate place at Shanghai Theatre Academy - a 42 percent increase in the number of applicants compared to last year, and a record high for the school. With only 464 full-time places available across all of the disciplines, competition is extremely tough.

Communications University in Beijing is also a popular choice for applicants wanting a career in the media and entertainment industry. Just over 51,000 are competing for the 703 places available at the school that trained some of China's most recognized television hosts including CCTV personalities Li Yong and Bai Yansong.

The exams this week follow on from the 2018 exams for postgraduate students held in late December. Alessandro Ceschi spent a year at BFA learning Chinese before he sat the entrance exam for a BFA Masters degree program. "About one year from when I studied the first Chinese character, it was interesting launching into writing an essay and analyzing social issues using Chinese. Next to me were friends who had worked really hard in the months before to get ready for the exam. One of them had been my classmate in my first Chinese beginner class. I was proud to be there on December 24th to see what we could do."

China's film and television industry has been growing rapidly thanks to the success of films like Detective Chinatown 2 and Red Sea, which contributed towards China breaking the world record for one-day box office sales during the recent Spring Festival Holiday. Box office revenues in China grew by around 13 percent in 2017, making it the second biggest movie market outside of North America.