The leader of China’s premier film academy shares with HAQ a wide range of information about the academy, including its history, curriculum, graduates, and impact on Chinese and world cinema. The picture that emerges is the BFA as a thriving institution poised to play an increasingly important role in defining the future of Chinese and Asian cinema.

A versatile artist and an active filmmaker for over 20 years, Zhang Hui-jun is the President of the Beijing Film Academy (BFA). He has worked on many films that have garnered prizes at Chinese and international film festivals. Zhang's film credits include: Neighbors ( Linju ) (1982), Black Sun ( Hei Taiyang ) (1989) and, most recently, The Most Beloved One Has Left ( Shijie shang Zui Teng de Nage Ren Qule ) (2002).

HAQ: Please introduce the general structure and curriculum of the Beijing Film Academy (BFA).

Zhang: The Beijing Film Academy was founded in 1950. We have 15 departments including Film Literature, Screenwriting, Directing, Cinematography, Acting, Sound, Art Direction, and Animation. We also have management and editing departments as well as a film studies department, which specializes in film analysis and history. There is a film production department that teaches the technical skills of filmmaking. We also have a Division of Continuing Education for Adults and an international exchange division that annually accepts about 15 foreign graduate students. Last but not least, there is a photography department, and we have film laboratories and sound studios on campus.

All of the courses have evolved over the school's fifty-year history. Each course teaches a particular aspect of the methodology of film production. For example, if you are learning about screenwriting, the first year you must first record a 10-minute segment. We don't allow the students to write first, because [after filming] one will know how to use the lens and the screen to tell a story and the difference between telling a story with words and with images. They will know how characters are filmed. [They learn how to answer questions such as:] Should they film one, two, or three persons; how events should be filmed, whether there should be a link and a background; whether there should be a longer shot; should they talk in the car or on the side of the street. Screenwriting students also have many papers to complete. They are free to choose their paper topics. They are also responsible for 5 to 10-minute film projects with the topic and content to be decided by the student as well. However, the student must discuss the written work with his or her teacher and the teacher must help with editing. If the language is not moving enough for a character, words must be added; if there is not enough action for a character, action must be added; if the story's location is not appropriate, then the student must change it. For example, one might include a transition from the library to the cafeteria. The student must discuss it with a teacher and then start filming, because the school takes full responsibility for the experiment of the students, giving them time to write the paper, make corrections to the paper, etc. Once it is finished, the teacher will discuss it, and the whole class then watches your film and you explain the ideas behind the film, what obstacles you had in filming, and what goals were not met, what were the mistakes and lessons. The other classmates then critique and finally the teacher identifies what is good, what is bad, and what needs to be changed, or if it does not need change, and it is set aside. The student then proceeds to the next project. The student ultimately chooses the topic and sets the details of his or her graduation project.

HAQ: What are some of the general characteristics of students and faculty members?

Zhang: Students are recruited from high schools in February and March. All film students have to go through subject tests in addition to the nationally administered humanities examination. Every year, more than 100,000 students participate in the film & acting exams, but we only accept some 400 to 500 students. Acting is an especially competitive major.

Beijing Film Academy 's acceptance rate for women is the highest for all Chinese higher educational institutions. Over half of the student body is female. I feel that if one studies film or another fine art, gender is not significant. Female students are often more sensitive and more emotional than their male classmates. They also have viewpoints different from those of their male counterparts. The only department that has only a few or no women is the cinematography division. This is because the equipment is heavy. However, in general, female students are not particularly disadvantaged, whether during their time at the school or on the job market.

The majority of instructors are Chinese and many are BFA graduates. Every year, we also invite visiting scholars from Europe and the US for intellectual exchange and teaching. All of our faculty members have film production experience. Without film experience, they can't be at our school, because they can't discuss problems with the students. Teaching is not having a book, memorizing three pages, and then teaching it to the students. This is an impossible method. No matter if the teacher is a veteran or a novice, they must have filming experience and not just one but a few experiences, so that they have the requisite experience to lecture a class. Our teachers work in a cyclical schedule. They have 1/3 of their time allotted specifically for class. During this time, they remain at school teaching a variety of classes. They must teach at least 2 classes. Another 1/3 of the time, they work on films. They either write a screenplay themselves and then film or go through a film company and be a director or cinematographer. For the remaining 1/3 of this cycle, they should do research, go abroad to tour, attend conferences, or write books. In practice, the distribution of time for teachers is like this. For six months you teach, for the next six months you go become a director, actor, or cinematographer, and then for six months after that, you can go to England and spend a month, go to the US for some time, or attend a Chinese university to take a course in economics or another related field, or stay home to write a book or article.

HAQ: What kinds of films do BFA students like to watch and draw their influences from?

Zhang: Many of them watch Western films. They watch classic films, starting with pieces from the silent film era, and those all the way to the present. However, they do not really prefer American films because it seems that many productions, especially Hollywood 's, are from one mold and do not have any special characteristics. They question why everyone [in those films] wears the same clothes, says the same things, and in the same accent. Also, they don't like American films because they watch too many of them. Nevertheless, students still think that American cinematography is the most advanced: the screen quality, the action shots and edited shots, combined with the whole atmosphere. Students like to watch European, Iranian, Indian, and Scandinavian (Icelandic, Swedish, Danish) films. These other countries' directors are unique and present their personal characteristics along with their respective native cultures in their films.

HAQ: Do you see any changes in student productions, particularly in comparison to the 1980s, when the fifth generation of graduates, including some of the most prominent alumni like Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, were being trained?

Zhang: Students in the 1980s had much more bitter yet richer and more diverse experiences than the current generation. Some had served in the army, others had been rural workers or industrial workers. They could only learn from books and rarely watched movies. The students today live much better, and they never dealt with significant hardships; after graduating from high school, they go into university. They also seem to be brighter and are more knowledgeable. They get a lot of information from magazines, newspapers, the Internet, television, books and movies.

Furthermore, I think the students today are very intelligent and conscious about how competitive it is to succeed in the film industry. Over the course of their studies, they deal with a lot of stress and many dilemmas. They are troubled by how to get a job, how to obtain funding to make a movie, whether they will make a profit, how to become famous and how to survive. The stress now is much greater than what we faced. Our era was the era of the planned economy, which meant that we didn't have to think about economic conditions and funding opportunities. Today, opportunities are more rare because the number of graduates has increased exponentially. Thus, for each person, the probability of success has lessened significantly.

HAQ: Is the student body divided between those who want to be artistically oriented and those who want to be commercially oriented?

Zhang: If we are talking about what they watch, most students actually watch both types of films. Artistic films, like those from Europe , have slim prospects for box office success and are purely individualized. As I mentioned before, the students like those films very much. At the same time, they also enjoy popular commercial films, such as those from South Korea , India , and the US . Students need to choose between two contradictory options. To be famous, they have to make artistic films; to make money, they need a box office hit and thus will have to make commercial films. Students forced to take the latter route always have regrets, so they can never fully commit to commercial films. Thus, when they make commercial films, they'll want to make some artistic films. However, they are likely to face the situation in which no investors are interested.

HAQ: Is there a modernization of the topics studied and portrayed in the films?

Zhang: Yes, the subject matter of the films has really become more modernized. The Chinese economy is doing really well. In the 1970s and 1980s, when China 's economic reforms just started, the films challenged the viewers to think more about and establish China 's national identity and status in the world. Chinese philosophy, religion, and culture had to be situated in world culture. The films reflected China 's path from the time of the Opium War until the current period and featured more topics that addressed China 's history, including ancient history. They showcased the past in order to get people to see historical parallels in thinking about current affairs. However, in the past 20 years, the Chinese economy has been growing rapidly, and the position of China in the international community has changed, with the result that the topics have now shifted towards discussing the lives of people in the past 20 years along with the social and economic transformations. These topics include how Eastern and Western cultures have interacted and how to harmonize [the differences between these cultures]; and, under these conditions, how individual feelings and thoughts, as well as education, can adapt to the transformations.

HAQ: Do students follow international trends or national trends?

Zhang: We want to instill the belief in our students that addressing the Chinese audience must be their priority. If you make a film that no one in your own culture likes, and if even your parents and siblings don't like it, then you are not a successful filmmaker. You first have to have the Chinese people like it. Thus, being more “Chinese” means being more practical. You can't make a film to please certain persons, like members of a Western audience, since there are even differences between Western audiences, such as that between the Europeans, Latin Americans, Australians, etc. You can't please every group because their histories, economic conditions, and levels of cultural development are different. Considering these conditions, we want our students' target audience to be the native audience. In Asia , many filmmakers, such as those from Korea , Japan , as well as China, focus on appealing to their own native cultural audiences.

HAQ: What do the majority of the students do after graduation?

Zhang: There are typically three tracks for our students in terms of concentration and eventual career. One is the film track, which is specifically for film. This includes jobs for domestic film companies, foreign film companies, and film factories. The second track is for television, producing shows and MTV. The third track is working for a cultural organization that makes commercials or does set design, printing, and planning of large performances.

HAQ: Are there students at the BFA who go abroad on exchange programs?

Zhang: Yes, but there are no students who graduate from our school who then go abroad to learn about film production. This is because such education is too expensive and because it would be redundant after what they've learned at BFA. When they do go abroad, they typically earn Master's degrees, and they usually learn about a related field. They learn film history and theory, but they don't learn about production. The students who leave to study abroad only amount to about 5% of the student body. Some students don't go abroad to learn about subjects related to film but other subjects such as economics and management. Conversely, hundreds of foreign students have studied and graduated from the BFA over the years. They are mostly from other Asian countries – Japan , Korea , Vietnam , India , and Sri Lanka.

HAQ: Are there films written in other dialects or languages?

Zhang: Yes, but none of the films is entirely written in a regional dialect and every one must have subtitles in Chinese characters. Foreign students are often able to use their native languages such as English or Korean but they are required to provide Chinese subtitles. In the foreign languages genre, there are always subtitles because they are distributed around the world. All graduation projects are [also] required to have English subtitles in order to allow them to compete in future international competitions.

HAQ: As a finishing note, can you discuss BFA student participation in international film festivals?

Zhang: We don't recommend films but we do mail all of the films to international competitions. If the competition committee selects one, then we allow the students [involved in the film's production] to go and attend. Some films have gone to the Cannes festival. Others have been included in the Tokyo Film Festival and others in Korean events. Our school held a tri-regional student film exchange and small-scale competition in May 2002. We submitted two films and one won an award. Taiwanese schools entered about 10 films and one won an award. Every film school, like the City University of Hong Kong, Tainan Arts Institute, and Taiwan 's Chengchi University , all sent in films. A panel of professors decided on best screenplay, best director, and so on.