Thread by @doctorow

The Chinese film regulator has released a new policy document: "Several Opinions on Promoting the Development of Science Fiction Films," which sets out guidelines for new sf movies.

chinafilm.gov.cn/chinafilm/cont…

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Writing in @variety, China Bureau Chief @rebeccaludavis breaks down the new rules and gives some context for them.

variety.com/2020/film/news…

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The top priority, of course, is to "thoroughly study and implement Xi Jinping Thought."

After that empty nod to the cult of personality, the guidelines get more specific.

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Films should "highlight Chinese values, inherit Chinese culture and aesthetics, cultivate contemporary Chinese innovation," "disseminate scientific thought" and "raise the spirit of scientists."

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The document claims there is a shortage of good Chinese sf scripts, and calls for the creation of a pipeline of Chinese sf writers with elementary and middle-school students systematically exposed to "excellent sci-fi movies."

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Universities should create programs that "strengthen the training of sci-fi related talent."

It calls for the creation of a "national science fiction film screening alliance."

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In terms of production, the document calls for the creation of a domestic VFX industry, warning of disruptions to production if the US-Chinese trade war deepens.

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Davis points out that the Chinese film ecosystem has some important structural barriers to high-quality film productions, such as a lack of film insurance underwriters and completion guarantors, leading to "projects with quick returns."

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The document calls for banks to create "credit products and loan models specific to the characteristics of sci-fi movies."

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It calls upon insurers to "innovate in the development of IP rights infringement liability insurance for sci-fi movies, as well as group accident insurance and personal accident insurance for specific actors and staff" as well as "financing guarantee services for sf movies."

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This is a fascinating glimpse inside a top-down approach to arts funding and support. I remember speaking at the Singapore Writers' Festival and meeting a bureaucrat with a plan to produce a Nobel-prize-winning novelist.

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They were going to analyze the education of all winners, as well as the books they'd written, and systematically train a cohort of novelists. When I pointed out that decriminalizing queer sexualities would likely do more to improve arts outcomes, they were nonplussed.

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It's also fascinating to see SF get this kind of serious state consideration. In the USA, the intelligentsia's contempt for SF allowed it to be a vehicle for smuggling in radical ideas - that was basically Rod Serling's entire schtick.

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But there is nothing intrinsic to a "literature of imagination" that makes it politically radical: the broad reactionary streak in SF/F makes that clear.

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I'm looking forward to seeing whether China can figure out how to use SF to solidify the status quo without creating a radical tendency that uses the same stories to tear it down.

eof/