Winning awards would be fine, but box office is more important.
Business is first.
China's latest wave of directors, the so-called Sixth Generation from the Beijing Film Studio system, is eager to find financing for films that could reach China's potential audience of 1.3 billion. The directors are striving to produce blockbusters to compete with Hollywood's top offerings, and they've got to hurry. Once China enters the World Trade Organization, perhaps within months, mainland directors will be forced to compete with 20 imports a year. So they're scrambling to find the cinematic formula that will attract the widest possible audience. Han San-ping, president of the Beijing Film Studio, says China's filmmakers, whatever their genre, have had a difficult time attracting funding.