Chinese children's films shown in New York theatres

Two Chinese films have been selected for the New York International Children's Film Festival this year. While "Monkey King" is an animation that is the restoration of the original work from 1951-1954, "Cinderella Moon", co-produced by cinematographer Richard Bowen, is a fairytale based on a Chinese tale “Ye Xian” dated back from 768 A.D. The film was shot in Yunnan Province.

" 'Cinderella Moon' is the very first version of Cinderella, long before the German version and the Disney version were made…'Monkey King' is really beautiful and is a great story. I've been wanting to show the film for so many years, but the only print has been destroyed. I was very happy to find out that the work has been restored," said Eric Beckman, Founder and Director of New York International Children's Film Festival.

Many films the Festival has shown have gone on to become Oscar nominated or Oscar winners. Over the past four years, the Festival has had 12 to 14 Oscar nominated films. "The Dreams of Jinsha", a Chinese animated film, was one of them. It was an Oscar nominated film last year and was accepted by the Academy Awards as one of the contenders, along with DreamWorks' "Shrek Forever After" and Disney-Pixar's “Toy Story 3”.The animation, which cost US11 million to made, has been well-received by global audience. The Hangzhou government’s official site said “a fully seated exhibition center in New York welcomed the cartoon” and praised the work which “has been the best achievement for domestic cartoons”.

When Beckman first started the Festival 15 years ago, he received feedback from people saying “children only like happy endings”, or “children would never read subtitles, or “children don’t want to watch movies from different countries”. But Beckman wasn’t convinced. He was right.