More films needed to bolster industry hit hard by virus

After the closure of cinemas for six months due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, Chinese moviegoers finally returned to their beloved silver screen.

On Monday, cinemas in low-risk areas started to reopen under COVID-19 prevention protocols. Most chose to screen old films that have already won great popularity in the past few years, such as the Disney production Coco, last year's Chinese thriller Sheep Without A Shepherd and the animation Ne Zha.

The new productions with high budgets, which should have come out during Spring Festival, have yet to be released.

Nevertheless, one film, the story of two children in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, is an exception. The award-winning A First Farewell became the first new film to be released after the reopening.

According to Maoyan, the major Chinese business analysis website on the movie industry, the film was released in 44 cities, including Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and became the highest-grossing production in cinemas on Monday.

On Monday, more than 2,900 screenings, accounting for 29 percent of the total nationwide, were arranged for A First Farewell.

"I think our distribution at this time is special," said Wu Feiyue, chief distributor of the film. "We used to promote specific films before, but now we promote not only a film, but also the whole industry. It's time to rebuild confidence and bring people back to cinemas.

"And, in the current mood of a comeback after a long farewell, no other film suits better than this one with its warm tone," he said.

Tian Shan Cinema at Hongqiao Art Center, one of the most historic cinemas in Shanghai, started preparations to receive its first customers as early as 8:30 am on Monday. A First Farewell became the first film to be released that day. Its earliest screening was at 9:50 am.

All 27 tickets for this debut were sold out in less than an hour on Sunday. For safety reasons, tickets have to be booked online in advance with real identities, and attendance per show must not exceed 30 percent, according to the Chinese Film Administration. And the showtime for screenings should not exceed two hours.

"We didn't expect all the tickets to be sold," said Shi Yijing, manager of the cinema. "Audiences have said they missed the cinema a lot. We have also sorely missed them after six months of closure."

The film, with dialogue in Uygur and Mandarin, is director Wang Lina's first feature-length production.

At the 69th Berlin International Film Festival in 2019, it won the Grand Prix of the Generation Kplus International Jury for the Best Feature Film, a section for children's films. It also won awards at international film festivals in Tokyo and Hong Kong.

After COVID-19 was largely contained in China, Wu's team announced on July 13 that A First Farewell would be released on the first day of the reopening of cinemas. However, he said he didn't expect the day of the cinema reopening to come so soon.

Wu was overjoyed that the film was warmly welcomed by cinemas and moviegoers.

Wu and some other experts also pointed out that more new films are in need to bolster the hard-hit industry.

"Producers of high-budget major productions continue to wait and see," Rao Shuguang, president of the China Film Critics Association, said in an interview with China Central Television. "But only if these films soon return to screens can people's enthusiasm for watching movies be fully reignited. The film industry can only survive when cinemas are lively."