A “Spiritual Oasis” Reborn

After a year and a half, animators reconvened in Nantong, Jiangsu, for the 6th Dongbuzhou Animation Week. This event, formerly known as the China Independent Animation Film Forum (CIAFF) as 2011, is considered a “spiritual oasis” by many animators due to its professionalism and unique content.

The event features screenings and competitions that highlight emerging creative forces, providing opportunities for animation talents entering the industry.Industry experts share their experiences, fostering dialog with young creators. Yu Zhou, president of Light Chasing Animation and producer of Three Thousand miles in Chang’an, is one of the curators and a regular attendee.

High-Quality Content and Industry Reference

The equal communication and focus on real issues contribute to the high quality of Animation Week’s content, making it a valuable resource for the industry. One film company representative noted that attending the forum for three days provided more insight then the previous two to three years.

This year’s event, held in spring, coincided with a new phase in Chinese animation development, spurred by the success of projects like Nezha 2 during the Spring Festival. This success has led to the industry officially entering the mainstream cultural consumption field.

Animation✖?: Building a Sustainable Ecosystem

The 6th Dongbuzhou Animation Week adopted the theme Animation✖?, exploring how to build a sustainable animation industry ecosystem by examining its relationship with other cultural industries and content creation boundaries.

Two years prior, organizers recognized that people in all fields are trying to associate with animation, or use it to influence young people. Animation has become a medium for many industries to interact with audiences. This year’s event featured nine in-depth dialogues with guests from live film and television, culture and tourism, games, and contemporary art.

Overseas Travel, Cultural Tourism, and Games: Key Dialogue Themes

The dialogues focused on overseas travel, cultural tourism, and games, addressing commercial growth, content awareness, and interaction with advanced production capabilities and leading IPs. These topics are of meaningful interest to the entire content industry.

• Overseas Travel: Explored the necessity of going overseas, the difficulties, and achievements, emphasizing the importance of trust and early participation in projects.
• Cultural Tourism: Focused on establishing cultural and tourism content awareness, tapping into offline content consumption, and advocating product manager thinking.
• Game Film and Television Adaptation: Analyzed the differences in production processes and narrative methods between games and animation,exploring the future direction of game film and television development.

Going Overseas: Cultural Output and Incremental Markets

Chinese content going overseas is now an industry imperative, driven by cultural output and incremental market value. Dong Zhiling, president of Face Filmography, Ma Leimeng, general manager of FORTISSIMO FILMS, and Wu Zhiyu, founder and chairman of T. Base Co., Ltd., shared their experiences as cultural ferrymen.

Dong Zhiling believes that the entire content industry chain in my country is constantly upgrading, and the content completion is constantly improving, so he has been thinking about the topic of Chinese content entering the international stage. Ma Leimeng added, in fact, the popular Chinese comic style in China may also have a good performance in the French market. At least I feel that China has a demand and hopes that culture will go global.

Wu Zhiyu noted that the limited domestic market in Korea prompted content creators to focus on overseas opportunities, with many Korean works receiving positive feedback abroad. When a home country goes abroad, the effect is somewhat unpredictable. Many Korean films are very popular abroad, but in fact, people in china may think it is average.

Challenges include cross-cultural theme barriers, understanding, docking proficiency, and the mentality of cultural export. ma Leimeng noted that mythological topics can be done,but abroad basically do not understand the Chinese mythological system. Dong Zhiling emphasized the difficulty of finding the right audience, stating, I have no way to decide what kind of dish is made. I can only get this dish to find the group that likes it. This is very difficult.After all, the taste of foreigners is definitely different from that of China.

Wu Zhiyu suggested integrating global themes and collaborating with foreign artists or brands to overcome these challenges. Despite these issues, Chinese content supporters have made achievements overseas. Maremont’s work on the European release of Deep Sea was successful, and Son of Time is set for release next month.

Dong Zhiling shared a significant achievement: Previously, a film was released in Japan after it was released for 500 days in China.The audience who really wanted to watch it had been watched on video websites, which led to the Chinese people in Japan never having the habit of watching Chinese films. This year, “The Investiture of the Gods” and “Nezha 2” were released concurrently in Japan, and many people also went to the cinema to watch Chinese movies for the first time. So, does this mean that this is changed? I think this is counted. Chinese people in Japan are the largest foreign group,with about 800,000 people. These more than 800,000 people have never entered Japanese theaters.

The core demand for overseas distribution is trust and early participation in projects. Dong Zhiling emphasized that as I don’t know, I am afraid, and I am worried that negative reviews of the film will affect many subsequent cooperation. Fortunately, trust mechanisms are being established, making things easier. Ask a meeting, a video, or even a direct email. As long as your stuff is good and there is no industry stain, the company will be long enough.

Malemeng noted the weak awareness of overseas distribution among upstream content development teams, stating, At present, domestic film companies have a low awareness of overseas distribution and have not considered how to do it after it becomes popular abroad, so there is no preparation in the early stage and there is no channel. He suggested that Chinese companies start systematically considering overseas markets from the script development stage.

Games and Animations: Process Industrialization and New IP Sources

Animation is becoming a standard component of game IP, with top domestic original animations like The Battle of the Two Cities and The Month of Glory of Kings linked to game IPs. The interaction between games and animation extends beyond IP, considering that both are b