BEIJING ? Organizers of the film market at the 1st Beijing International Film Festival said deals valued at nearly 2.8 billion yuan ($429 million) were completed in the three days of the state-run event ended Wednesday after what some guests called a messy start.
The Beijing Film Market, which began Monday, attracted 334 film companies and 860 registered industry professionals from around the world, organizers said.
Foot traffic was steady in and around the film festival, which ends Thursday, and at the concurrent market events, spread across several participating hotels. Most guests were Chinese attending industry forums featuring visitors from more mature movie markets.
The number of Hollywood visitors to China has risen steadily in recent years and peaked in recent months since the domestic box office gross ticket sales rose 64% in 2010 to hit $1.5 billion, making it the fastest growing movie market in the world.
Festival and market guests included first-time China visitor and Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky, who called the festival ?exciting,? and representatives of Twentieth Century Fox, the German Film Institute, the Tokyo International Film Festival and CJ Entertainment of South Korea.
The total transaction value of deals signed over three days in between new project presentations and screenings of films such as Black Swan, True Grit and Buddha Mountain, set a record for domestic film festivals and exhibitions, organizers said.
No deal specifics were given and organizers did not reply to email and telephone requests for comment by deadline.
Veteran overseas visitors to China recognized the event?s pervasive undercurrent of haphazard organization as typical, but some local professionals found it infuriating and embarrassing.
?A MESS. A Joke! A disgrace!? wrote one Beijing-based Chinese film company market participant in an email to The Hollywood Reporter.?
The market book ? typically a crucial guide to finding the whereabouts of potential business partners at a film market ? only arrived on the market floor at the Beijing International Hotel at the end of the second day of the market.
Despite frequently shifting forum times and a scant availability of accurate information in English, most foreign guests, and especially VIPs ? the cost of whose visits to China were covered by the festival -- were diplomatic in assessing the event, marveling even at the potential they felt they saw.
Australian John Polson, founder of short film festival TropFest, which will expand to Abu Dhabi in November, said he?d come to China for the first time to find a way to launch his festival here.?
?It?s all very exciting here and since we?re known for films made on mobile phones, this is our natural market.?
China not only has the world?s greatest number of mobile phone users but also hosts two other major movie events -- the Hong Kong International Film Festival, which completed its 35th edition in March, and the Shanghai International Film Festival, which is set to stage its 14th edition in June.
In keeping with recent messages from high within China?s one-party government about the need to use all media to promote China?s image overseas, festival and market organizers said in a statement that the deals done over the three-day event were for projects ?typical of Chinese style and themes, which, in a sense, will present as the positive elements on enhancing the understanding of Chinese culture.?
The BJIFF and the Beijing Film Market were hosted and organized by the country?s lead media regulator, the State Administration of Radio Film and Television, and by Gehua, the commercial cultural arm of the Beijing City government.
In a telling moment during a forum on international film finance on Tuesday, dozens of Chinese film professionals applauded enthusiastically when the head of the Motion Picture Association of America?s Asia operations clarified the Hollywood studio lobby?s role as a non-governmental agency.
The MPAA is not like SARFT?s Film Bureau, Mike Ellis hinted, saying: ?The MPAA was formed in 1922 to stop the government from getting involved in the movie business.? Loud applause erupted from roughly a third of the audience of about 400 mostly Chinese people.
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