Chinese Film Industry Visit to Uk 2015
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CHINESE FILM INDUSTRY VISIT TO UK 2015 ALIBABA PICTURES WEI ZHANG Ms. Wei Zhang is President of Alibaba Pictures and Senior Vice President of Alibaba Group. She joined Alibaba Group in 2008 to lead the Group’s investment and acquisition activities. She has also worked in the Group’s strategy department and led Alibaba corporate social responsibility efforts. Currently she is in charge of Alibaba Pictures’ international business and investment and acquisition activities. From 2005 to 2008, Ms. Zhang was the Chief Operating Officer of News Corporation STAR China, responsible for managing China operations, revenue, new media, and business development. From 2002 to 2005, Ms. Zhang was Managing Director of CNBC China, a division of General Electric Company, overseeing CNBC’s operations in China. She worked at News Corporation China from 2000 to 2002 in the role of Director of Business Development. Prior to that, Ms. Zhang was a Strategic Consultant at Bain & Company, and a Finance Specialistat General Electric Company and GE Capital. Company Profile Alibaba Pictures Group’s mission is to create happiness. Alibaba Pictures’ core businesses have been categorized into four main segments: film and television production centred on IP (intellectual property); internet-based promotion and distribution combining internet technologies and traditional off-line distribution; the building and operation of e-commerce platforms for entertainment as an extension of the Alibaba Group ecosystem and international operations that consolidate global resources, technologies and talents in order to participate in the global entertainment industry. www.alibabagroup.com BONA FILM GROUP LIMITED JEFFREY CHAN Jeffrey is currently the COO and a board member of Bona Film Group (NASDAQ: BONA). He also co-founded with Nansun Shi, a veteran producer of Asian pictures, the international sales agent, Distribution Workshop, now a Hong Kong-based Joint-Venture subsidiary of Bona. In his capacity of COO for Bona, Jeffrey executive-produced and produced some 30 films including The Taking of Tiger Mountain (Tsui Hark, Zhang Hanyu), the Overheard trilogy (Alan Mak / Felix Chong, Lau Ching Wan), The Man from Macau 1 & 2 (Wong Jing, Chow Yun-fat), The White Storm (Benny Chan, Louis Koo), Unbeatable (Dante Lam, Nick Cheung), My Lucky Star (Dennie Gordon, Zhang Ziyi), The Last Tycoon (Wong Jing, Chow Yun-fat), A Simple Life (Ann Hui, Deanie Yip), The Flying Swords of Dragon Gate (Tsui Hark, Jet Li), The Sorcerer & the White Snake (Tony Ching, Jet Li) and others. Jeffrey is also the executive producer of In The Room, the latest film by the Singaporean auteur, Eric Koo, which is being show- cased in the Love strand of the BFI London Film Festival this year. Company Profile Bona Film Group Limited is a leading film distributor in China, with an integrated business model encompassing film distribu- tion, production, exhibition and talent representation. Bona distributes films to Greater China, Korea, Southeast Asia, the United States and Europe, invests in and produces movies in a variety of genres, owns and operates twenty movie theatres and manages a range of talented and popular Chinese artists. www.bonafilm.cn BEIJING ENLIGHT PICTURES CO. LTD YAMIN ZHANG As the General Manager of Enlight International Department, Yamin Zhang has been worked for Enlight over five years, being in charge of international production and distribution, as well as some Chinese language film product placement and productions. She has helped over 30 Enlight films travel around the world in the past five years. She also managed and co-produced Chinese language film shooting outside China such as Breakup Guru shooting in Mauritius and Hollywood Adventures shooting in Los Angeles. After Enlight set up several Joint Venture with world class directors and producers, Yamin now is more involved in cross-culture project development and productions, helping leading English language speaking talents to explore Chinese market. Apart from International Business, Yamin also co-produce the Chinese local language films for Enlight and mange local product placement business. Company Profile Beijing Enlight Pictures is one of China’s top three private film production companies. After the breakout success of Enlight’s first movie Confession of Pain in 2006, the company took on film distribution as a significant aspect of its operations. In recent years, Enlight has operated under the mantra that ‘content is king’, and invested in a string of major releases. Domestic box office record holder Lost in Thailand earned 1.26 billion RMB in ticket sales, a record that remains unbroken for Chinese films to this day. In the first half of 2013, Enlight also released a string of movies that performed well both critically and in ticket sales, including the Golden Horse Award-winning cast of The Chef the Actor the Scoundrel, the Peter Chan-directed American Dreams in China, the directorial debut of actress Zhao Wei So Young, and Dearest, which won her a Golden Horse Award. In 2014, Dad, Where Are We Going?, The Breakup Guru, Fleet of Time, and My Old Classmate were four of the ten top-grossing movies in China, earning 3.13 billion RMB, and making the company the best-performing private film company in China. In 2015, the company also helped to distribute Zhong Kui: Snow Girl and the Dark Crystal and Triumph in the Skies, earning Spring Festival box office returns of 500 million RMB, as well as 470 million RMB from the production and distribution of The Left Ear in the graduation season. Hollywood Adventures, produced by Fast and Furious director Justin Lin, has also been well-received both in China and abroad. www.ewang.com IVANHOE PICTURES JANICE CHUA Janice began her career as an international sales executive in Beijing. She has worked with companies such as Arclight Films and Beijing Galloping Horse. While at Galloping Horse, Janice was involved in the development of international projects and most recently the international distribution of John Woo’s THE CROSSING. She’s currently the Director of Production at Ivanhoe Pictures with company aims to develop, produce and acquire content for Asia. Company Profile Ivanhoe Pictures was formed in 2013 as a motion picture and television financing and production entity headed by International financier Robert Friedland, producer John Penotti and Beijing- based media executive Ray Chen. Bolstered by an executive team with a collective 80+ years of experience in the entertainment industry, Ivanhoe develops, produces and acquires content for a global audience. With a specific focus on North America and Asia, the company works to bridge production opportunities in both markets. In addition to producing a slate of original content, Ivanhoe has established a 4-year multi-picture co-financing and co-production pact with Fox International Pictures (FIP) to produce local language films in India, Korea, China, Japan and Taiwan. Ten films are already in production, or will be, in 2014. Ivanhoe Pictures also recently announced that it will be financing and co-producing first-time novelist Kevin Kwan’s comedic best seller, Crazy Rich Asians, with Nina Jacobson (The Hunger Games) producing. The film is slated for production in the first quarter of 2015. www.ivanhoepictures.com CELINE LIN Celine Lin graduated from Paris 7 Denis Diderot studying Film Theory. Trilingual (French, English, Chinese) she worked in France and in China with extensive experience in international sales, distribution and production. She spent five years in Paris-based sales and production outfit COPRODUCTION OFFICE where she handled international sales of award-winning titles, then she moved to Beijing working for Wanda Pictures, the production and distribution side of the Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group, as Director of International Operations for years. Celine Lin is based currently in NYC. creative The project is funded by FCO’s China Prosperity SPF Fund and supported by UKTI China.