Alibaba Pictures, owned by tycoon Jack Ma's Alibaba Group, will spend 1 billion yuan ($158.3 million) to find young film talents and invest in promising scripts, the company said at a press conference in Beijing on Wednesday.
The total box office income in the Chinese movie market up to September 30 had reached 33 billion yuan, nearly 60 percent of which are homemade movies, grabbing about 19.8 billion yuan. Hoping to piggyback on the growing market, Alibaba Pictures launched "Project A," meaning to find A-listed talents and movie insiders under 45 from directors and script writers to actors.
"Project A" includes four programs, a training program for filmmakers, 8090 comedy studio, a project incubator and a one billion fund. Alibaba Pictures and its partners will set up new film and drama programs for young talents, who will work as heavy weight directors' assistants to gain experience.
The first three director-turned tutors for the training program will be Anthony La Molinara, winner of The 77th Annual Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects, Hollywood director Renny Harlin and Chinese director Zhang Yibai. Zhang Qiang, CEO of Alibaba Pictures said that the training program is not only for directors, but open to all the filmmakers as training young talents through co-productions will be a new direction for Alibaba Pictures.
