Beijing - A bevy of big-screen luminaries including Luc Besson and Arnold Schwarzenegger descended on Beijing recently for a star-studded international film festival, but art-house directors raised the alarm as authorities block a wave of independent cultural events.
Seeking to raise its "soft power" and standing on the world cultural stage, China is pushing its cinema industry with events such as last week's Beijing International Film Festival (BIFF).
State-run media trumpeted the competition's "A-list jury" -- chaired by Besson -- and said the event generated $2.2 billion in new contracts.
But the drive has been accompanied by a harsh crackdown on China's independent filmmakers, whose efforts to create works largely outside the state censorship system have been met with escalating political and financial pressure -- and even violence.
"The hardest thing is deducing where the line is," director and producer Vivian Qu said at a roundtable.
"Over the years, as the Chinese film market grew bigger and bigger, the words 'art-house' and 'independent' and 'underground' have seemed much more sensitive than before."
"I really don't know where the line is right now," she added. "It keeps moving."
The cinema clampdown is part of a broader stifling of civil society since President Xi Jinping took office two years ago, with the Communist Party targeting activists, human rights lawyers and journalists, as it seeks to prevent any challenge to its rule.
In Beijing alone, authorities have recently forced the cancellations of a wide range of independent events, including several music festivals due this weekend, an Earth Day celebration, a benefit for the Beijing LGBT Centre, and a craft beer fair that drew 8,000 people last year.
"Large gatherings are being cancelled left and right," its sponsors Great Leap Brewing noted.
AFP
