​Inner Mongolia to boost ethnic filmmaking

Adjust font size: 

A strategic development committee was founded by Inner Mongolia Film Group on July 23 in Ordos, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, aimed at promoting local ethnic filmmaking. 

The launch event of the Inner Mongolia Film Industry Strategic Development Committee was sponsored by Inner Mongolia Film Group and organized by Ordos Culture Tourism Development Group and Ejin Horo Banner Culture and Tourism Group.

The new committee intends to bring together domestic high-quality film resources, expand cooperation between the film industry and related fields, give full play to film as the core driving force for the development of the cultural and creative industries, and coordinate and liaise with all parties to boost joint development. Meanwhile, it is also looking to enhance the core competitiveness of the local film industry, and promote the prosperity and development of the film cultural industry in Inner Mongolia.

According to the outlined plans, the committee will not only play an important role in incubating high-quality film projects and cultivating film production enterprises and professionals, but will also act as an important organization for promoting film creation, research and academic activities.

Zeng Han, chairman of Inner Mongolia Film Group, said in his speech at the committee's launch that his company will further improve the quantity and quality of Inner Mongolian films through financial support and resource integration, expand the share of local cinema in the national market, and build the Inner Mongolian film brand to boost development of ethnic filmmaking in China.

To date, Inner Mongolia Film Studio has produced more than 170 feature films and 150 documentaries, and translated more than 2,000 films into Mongolian. It has also won more than 120 awards from events ranging from the Golden Rooster Awards and Shanghai International Film Festival to the Tokyo International Film Festival and Cannes Film Festival. Films produced by the studio such as "Victories of the People in Inner Mongolia" (1951), "Morning Song over the Grassland" (1959), "Going East to Native Land" (1993), "Mother" (2010) and "Norjmaa" (2014) have been critically acclaimed and hailed as classics in China's film history. 

In recent years, Inner Mongolia Film Group has also worked with China Film Group and Bona Film Group to co-produce such blockbusters as "Chinese Doctors," "The Captain," "My Country, My Parents" and "The Battle at Lake Changjin." In 2022, the group will continue to work on new important projects, including a film about how Inner Mongolian herdsmen adopted 3,000 orphans from areas of China hit by natural disasters in the 1960s.

Renowned screenwriter Ran Ping said at a seminar held after the launch ceremony that ethnic elements of Inner Mongolian films also belong to the world and will attract global attention. "The core philosophy of grassland culture and Inner Mongolia's unique cultural elements such as strength, great energy, loyalty, bravery, industriousness and purity should become the main features presented by Inner Mongolian films," he said, adding that local film creation should be more diverse to generate social and commercial interest.

Ren Zhonglun, vice-chairman of the China Film Association, agreed, saying that the ethnic features of Inner Mongolia are at the heart of films produced in the region, and hailed Inner Mongolian cinema as an outstanding brand of China's ethnic films.

Hou Guangming, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and former Party secretary of Beijing Film Academy, said that the Inner Mongolian film industry requires the efforts of the central government, local governments, enterprises and filmmakers from different respects. 

"On the basis of inheriting the fine traditions of the past, the local film industry should actively innovate in terms of mechanism, talent training and story selection, and be at the forefront of national film creation," he said, adding that he expects Inner Mongolia to become an "important base" for filmmakers across the country to create and produce films set on grasslands.