Qingdao: China’s First and World-Class Natural Film Studio

Among the seven categories of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, there is a category of cities that are both technological and artistic, very active and creative, and constantly try to depict the dream world with creativity. They are the capital of cinema.

In October 2017, Qingdao was awarded the title of UNESCO’s “Capital of Cinema”, becoming the first city in China to receive this honor. Why is this port city associated with movies? How to build the “World Dream Factory”? What kind of image of China has been shown on the world film stage?

Qingdao: The cradle of Chinese cinema

Qingdao is located in the southern part of the Shandong Peninsula and is an important economic center city in China, and the Chinese cultural tradition represented by Confucius constitutes Qingdao’s rich cultural background. Modern Qingdao is also widely known as the “Beer Capital of China”, “Tsingtao Beer” is the world’s fifth largest brewer, and the “Tsingtao International Beer Festival”, which has been held for 33 years, has become the largest beer event in Asia, showing the world China’s open, vibrant and fashionable city image.

In addition to fine wine, Qingdao has beautiful scenery. The local area is warm in winter and cool in summer, humid and pleasant, with a unique style of red tiles and green trees, blue sea and blue sky, and more than 20 different national style buildings, known as the “natural studio” of the East. UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova once said; “Qingdao is a very beautiful city with rapid economic development and outstanding educational highlights, and is a city full of innovation and vitality.”

In October 2017, Qingdao was selected into the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, becoming China’s first “Film Capital”. The story of Qingdao’s initial relationship with movies began more than 120 years ago.

Qingdao scenery

Review of the history of Qingdao film

In December 1895, the French Lumiere brothers screened the event video to the audience for the first time in Paris, marking the official birth of cinema. In 1898, German cinematographers came to the then Jiaoao Colony to photograph the natural scenery and people’s lives, and these works became one of the earliest documentaries filmed in China.

Jiaoao, Source: Rushi Bookstore

In 1899, the “Prince Henry Hotel” on the Qingdao seaside was built, and the concert hall in the hotel became one of the earliest cinemas in the history of Chinese cinema because it could show movies.

Qingdao Prince Henry Hotel, Source: Rushi Bookstore

In 1931, Shanghai film producers united with several capitalists to build the first commercial cinema operated by Chinese on Zhongshan Road in Qingdao, Shandong Grand Theater (the predecessor of today’s China Cinema).

Comparison of Shandong Grand Theater Past and Present Source: Baidu

The former site of the German Sailors Club at No. 17 Hubei Road, Qingdao is the earliest existing and fully preserved historical building in China for commercial film screenings, with a history of more than 120 years. With the strong support of the protective repair of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China, this century-old building has been transformed into a 1907 light and shadow cultural and creative base, with cultural and creative spaces such as the Qingdao 1907 Film Museum, the Film Music Theater, and the Film Life Museum, becoming China’s first film culture complex.

Comparison of the past and present of the Sailor Club, Source: Internet

In Qingdao, almost every street and cultural landmark has appeared in the film. For example, early Chinese films such as “Peach Blossoms After the Catastrophe”, “Children of the Wind and Clouds”, “Go to Nature”, “Lang Tao Sha”, etc. all used Qingdao as a location filming. The multi-angle and multi-level urban characteristics make the film elements carried here increasingly rich. According to statistics, more than 200 crews come to Qingdao every year to shoot, and Qingdao is also known as a “natural studio” without a roof.

Movie poster, Source: Baidu

Film and television activities are blooming, and the development of the film capital is unstoppable

As a link between creative cities in the world’s “film capital”, Qingdao pays attention to exchanges and cooperation in the fields of film art, film and television education, film and television industry, youth and other fields, and also supports folk cultural exchanges, creates a platform for film art and technological innovation, and drives cooperation between members in the fields of economy, education, science and technology, tourism, sports and other fields, and creates a more open humanistic environment for urban development.

Qingdao has deeply implemented the strategic deployment of “Cultural Qingdao” and introduced a series of policies to promote the development of the film industry. In 2018, the local government and enterprises jointly established a special fund of 5 billion yuan for the development of the film and television industry of Qingdao Oriental Film Capital, and gave up to 40% of the production cost subsidy to excellent film and television works completed in the main shooting and production in Qingdao Lingshan Bay Film and Television Cultural Industry Zone. Encourage filmmakers and institutions from all over the world to come to Qingdao to shoot.

Rich film activities

“Film Capital” summit

In 2017, Qingdao launched and held the Global Film Capital Summit, and jointly issued the Qingdao Declaration aimed at strengthening cooperation in film and other creative fields. Qingdao signed a memorandum of cooperation with Bradford, the “capital of film”, and reached cooperation intentions with Santos in Brazil, Sydney in Australia, and Bitola in Macedonia. The 2017 Chinese Film Festival “Film and Cities” roundtable and other exchange activities were held, and international conferences such as the UNESCO Convention on the Promotion and Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions Regional Consultation in Northeast Asia were held.

The scene of the “Film Capital” summit, Source: Baidu

Qingdao International Film and Television Design Week

In August 2020, Qingdao International Film and Television Design Week was successfully held in the West Coast New Area with the concept of “Fashion Qingdao Film Capital” and the theme of “Design Empowerment”. As a platform for the integration and implementation of high-quality industrial resources, Qingdao Design Center relies on Oriental Film City, Oriental Fashion Center, and Tsinghua Qingdao Institute of Art and Science Innovation to build an international fashion highland centered on the three major industries of film and television, fashion and industrial construction.

Qingdao International Film and Television Design Week Launching Ceremony, Source: Qingdao International Film and Television Design Week

The opening of the design week invited top domestic film and television character art directors and fashion leaders to work together to create the first classic film and television modeling cross-media show in China. The perfect combination of classic movies and modern fashion presents a beautiful artistic feast.

“Langya” film and television design costume show, Source: Qingdao International Film and Television Design Week

The design week also held the Film and Television IP Global Developers Conference, the International Cultural and Creative Development Roundtable and the Cultural and Creative Strategy Seminar of the main station. Domestic cutting-edge film and television IP developers, designers and well-known people in various professional fields of the licensing industry chain will discuss the development and utilization, integration and development of IP industrialization in the film and television industry.

Qingdao Film and Television Week

In April 2023, Qingdao Film and Television Week opened in Qingdao West Coast New Area, with the theme of “New Technology, New Vision, New Film Capital”, and set up 19 activities in five major units: “Science and Film Future”, the world’s “Film Capital”, “Golden Key Venture Capital Program”, “Sea Level” Young Filmmaker Program, and “Golden Seagull”, and organized the display of global film and television achievements, exchanges and mutual learning. The UNESCO Film Blue Book “Global Film Industry Development Report (2022)” was also released at the Film and Television Week, and the Qingdao Initiative, the world’s “film capital”, was launched to vigorously promote international exchanges in film and television culture.

At the Film and Television Week, activities such as the World “Film Capital” Film Master Class, the World “Film Capital” cooperation activities, the Oriental Film City International Film Screening, and the 5G High-tech Video Content Production and Innovation Exhibition were organized to show the concept of “diversified symbiosis, harmony and difference” of film culture. It is worth mentioning that the host of the closing ceremony of the event, “Picking Up Memories”, is a virtual digital character image developed and produced by Qingdao’s local film and television group using digital technology, reflecting the technical strength of the virtual reality of the “Science and Technology Film Capital”, in order to look forward to the infinite possibilities of the future development of the film and television industry.

Virtual host “Picking Up Memories”, Source: Qingdao Film and Television Week

A film event with a wide audience

Qingdao has also held New Zealand Film Week, Indian Film Week, Sino-French Film Week, German Film Week, Golden Phoenix Award, Qingdao Peasant Film Festival, Qingdao Primary and Secondary School Student Film Festival, Qingdao International Micro Film Festival and other film activities to promote film culture to different audiences around the world.

Science and technology promote hard power, and ingenuity creates a whole ecology

In 2018, Qingdao built the world’s largest “film industrialization production + supporting industry chain” film and television industrial park – Oriental Film Capital.

Oriental Film Capital, Source: Internet

There are 40 international top standard studios, 32 multi-functional framing workshops, a leading 10,000-square-meter single studio in China, the world’s only indoor and outdoor integrated underwater studio, a digital audio-visual center covering an area of nearly 20,000 square meters for full-process post-production, and a top-of-the-line domestic film production venue – film and television virtualization production platform.

Oriental Film City indoor shooting location, Source: Oriental Film City official website

At present, the total investment of film and television and online audio-visual industry projects in Qingdao Film and Television Base, where Qingdao Oriental Film Capital is located, exceeds 300 billion yuan, and the cumulative investment in fixed assets exceeds 170 billion yuan. In the core area of Qingdao Film and Television Base, there are more than 4,000 registered film and television enterprises, more than 300 crew projects have been introduced, and the film ticket real estate has exceeded 26 billion yuan.

As the world film capital, Qingdao strives to build an “internationally renowned and domestically leading” film and television industry system and industrial highland, and strives to become an “oriental Hollywood”. Qingdao has a hard technology audio-visual production center comparable to the highest international standards, a film heavy industry “production line” of “World Dream Factory”, and has also established a full-chain, all-factor high-quality film and television supplier alliance to meet the needs of the entire industrial production process from script rehearsal, filming to post-production, provide perfect policies, services, talents, cultural tourism, finance and other supporting services, and build an ecological map of “film and television +” in the whole industry chain.

Oriental Film Capital Industrial Park, Source: Peninsula Metropolis Daily

Qingdao West Coast New Area has also built a film and television location in Zangma Mountain, planning to build a characteristic block building complex in Europe, America and the old Beiping block of the Republic of China, the old Shanghai and Shikumen blocks of the Republic of China, and the costume shooting area. It can be seen that Qingdao’s film and television industry development layout radiating the whole city of “Lingshan Bay in the east and Zangma Mountain in the west” has begun to take shape.

Zangma Mountain Cinema, Source: Peninsula Metropolis Daily

References:
1.https://citiesoffilm.org/qingdao/
2.https://www.moviestudios.cn/about.html
3.http://www.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2023-04/11/c_1212006531.htm
4.https://news.qingdaonews.com/wap/2023-04/07/content_23429200.htm
5.https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/zoQQpSpAK_4fxRRVMbWLlw
6.https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/usfQlJvbZ3w-lJ9Tnyh52g

Source: International Center for Creativity and Sustainability
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