Film industry

Modern film industry[edit]
The worldwide theatrical market had a box office of US$38.6 billion in 2016. The top three continents/regions by box office gross were: Asia-Pacific with US$14.9 billion, the U.S. and Canada with US$11.4 billion, and Europe, the Middle East and North Africa with US$9.5 billion. As of 2016, the largest markets by box office were, in decreasing order, the United States, China, Japan, India, and the United Kingdom. As of 2011, the countries with the largest number of film productions were India, Nigeria, and the United States. In Europe, significant centers of movie production are Italy, France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

United States[edit]
Main article: Cinema of the United States The Hollywood Sign The cinema of the United States, often generally referred to as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. The United States cinema (Hollywood) is the oldest film industry in the world and also the largest film industry in terms of revenue. Hollywood is the primary nexus of the U.S. film industry with established film study facilities such as the American Film Institute, LA Film School and NYFA being established in the area. However, four of the six major film studios are owned by East Coast companies. The major film studios of Hollywood including Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 20th Century Fox, and Paramount Pictures are the primary source of the most commercially successful movies in the world, such as  Star Wars (1977), and Titanic (1997).

American film studios today collectively generate several hundred films every year, making the United States one of the most prolific producers of films in the world. Only The Walt Disney Company — which owns the Walt Disney Studios — is fully based in Southern California. And while Sony Pictures Entertainment is headquartered in Culver City, California, its parent company, the Sony Corporation, is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Most shooting now[when?] takes place in California, New York, Louisiana, Georgia and North Carolina.[citation needed] Between 2009–2015, Hollywood consistently grossed $10 billion (or more) annually. Hollywood's award ceremony, the Academy Awards, officially known as The Oscars, is held by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) every year and as of 2019, more than 3,000 Oscars have been awarded. Nestor studio, 1911 On 27 October 1911, Nestor Film Company established Hollywood's first permanent film studio. The California weather allowed for year-round filming. In 1912, Universal Studios was formed, merging Nestor and several other motion picture companies, including Independent Moving Pictures (IMP).

France[edit]
Main article: Cinema of France

France is the birthplace of cinema and was responsible for many of its significant contributions to the art form and the film-making process itself. Several important cinematic movements, including the Nouvelle Vague, began in the country. It is noted for having a particularly strong film industry, due in part to protections afforded by the French government.

French cinema is sometimes intertwined with the cinema of foreign nations. Directors from nations such as Poland (Roman Polanski, Krzysztof Kieślowski, and Andrzej Żuławski), Argentina (Gaspar Noé and Edgardo Cozarinsky), Russia (Alexandre Alexeieff, Anatole Litvak), Austria (Michael Haneke), and Georgia (Géla Babluani, Otar Iosseliani) are prominent in the ranks of French cinema. Conversely, some French directors have had careers in other countries, such as Luc Besson, Jacques Tourneur, or Francis Veber in the United States.

Another element supporting this fact is that Paris has the highest density of cinemas in the world, measured by the number of movie theaters per inhabitant, and that in most "downtown Paris" movie theaters, foreign movies which would be secluded to "art houses" cinemas in other places are shown alongside "mainstream" works. Philippe Binant realized, on 2 February 2000, the first digital cinema projection in Europe, with the DLP CINEMA technology developed by Texas Instruments, in Paris. Paris also boasts the Cité du cinéma, a major studio north of the city, and Disney Studio, a theme park devoted to the cinema and the third theme park near the city behind Disneyland and Parc Asterix.

In 2015, France saw a record-breaking 300 feature-length films produced. US and UK films only represented 44.9% of total admissions in 2014. This is largely due to the commercial strength of domestic productions, which accounted for 44,5% of admissions in 2014 (35.5% in 2015; 35.3% in 2016). In the mid-2000s, the French film industry was described as being "closer to being entirely self-sufficient than any other country in Europe, recovering around 80 - 90% of their budget in revenues generated from the domestic market". In 2018, French films had an international box office of €237m with 40 million admissions (down 52% from 2017), with Italy being the top foreign market.

China[edit]
Main article: Cinema of China Old Chinese Cinema in Qufu, Shandong

The cinema of China is one of three distinct historical threads of Chinese-language cinema together with the cinema of Hong Kong and the cinema of Taiwan. Cinema was introduced in China in 1896 and the first Chinese film, Dingjun Mountain, was made in 1905, with the film industry being centered on Shanghai in the first decades. China is the home of the largest film studio in the world, the Hengdian World Studios, and in 2010 it had the third largest film industry by number of feature films produced annually. For the next decade the production companies were mainly foreign-owned, and the domestic film industry was centered on Shanghai, a thriving entrepot and the largest city in the Far East. In 1913, the first independent Chinese screenplay, The Difficult Couple, was filmed in Shanghai by Zheng Zhengqiu and Zhang Shichuan.

As the Sixth Generation[clarification needed] gained international exposure, many subsequent films were joint ventures and projects with international backers, but remained quite resolutely low-key and low budget[citation needed]. Jia's Platform (2000) was funded in part by Takeshi Kitano's production house, while his Still Life was shot on HD video. Still Life was a surprise addition and Golden Lion winner of the 2006 Venice International Film Festival. Still Life, which concerns provincial workers around the Three Gorges region, sharply contrasts with the works of Fifth Generation Chinese directors like Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige who were at the time producing House of Flying Daggers (2004) and The Promise (2005). It featured no star of international renown and was acted mostly by non-professionals. In 2012 the country became the second-largest market in the world by box office receipts. In 2014, the gross box office in China was ¥29.6 billion (US$4.82 billion), with domestic films having a share of 55%. China has also become a major hub of business for Hollywood studios.

In 2018, China's gross box office was US$8.9 Billion In 2013, China's gross box office was ¥21.8 billion (US$3.6 billion), the second-largest film market in the world by box office receipts It increased to $4.8 Billion in 2014 box office grosser in film industry.

India[edit]
Main article: Cinema of India

Further information: Bollywood, Tamil cinema, Telugu cinema, Cinema of West Bengal, and Cinema of South India A scene from Raja Harishchandra(1913) – credited as the first full-length Indian motion picture.

India is the largest producer of films in the world and second oldest film industry in the world. The country is home of the one of the most important cities in the global film industry, Mumbai (previously called Bombay). In 2009 India produced a total of 2,961 films on celluloid; this figure includes 1,288 feature films. Besides being the largest producer of films in the world, India also has the largest number of admissions. Indian film industry is multi-lingual and the largest in the world in terms of ticket sales but 3rd largest in terms of revenue mainly due to having among the lowest ticket prices in the world. The industry is viewed mainly by a vast film-going Indian public, and Indian films have been[when?] gaining increasing popularity in the rest of the world—notably in countries with large numbers of expatriate Indians.[citation needed] Indian film industry is also the dominant source of films and entertainment in its neighboring countries of South Asia. The largest film and most popular industry in India is the Hindi film industry, followed by Tamil cinema and Telugu cinema. The Hindi film industry mostly concentrated in Mumbai (Bombay), and is commonly referred to as Bollywood, a portmanteau of Bombay and Hollywood. Both Kollywood (Tamil cinema) and Tollywood (Telugu cinema) mostly concentrated in Chennai and Hyderabad.

Besides the mainstream commercial movies, India also offers a different approach to cinema- the parallel cinema.The parallel cinema movement originated in West Bengal around the 1950s. Parallel cinema is a blanket term designated to a certain type of films that stray away from the conventions of popular mainstream cinema.Parallel cinema has assumed various forms throughout the years. Filmmakers associated with parallel cinema are Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak. Parallel films are characterized by their rejection of popular forms like the songs and fight sequences, their affinity for rural settings, use of method actors and toned down colour palettes. Some examples of such movies are Raincoat, Dhobi Ghat, Mithya.

Indian films have garnered popularity not only in the domestic market but also in the international markets with Dangal having an overseas gross revenue of $260 million, Secret Superstar, a women centric film with a gross revenue of $140 million and Bajrangi Bhaijaan with a gross revenue of $80.4 million, and Baahubhali a recent[when?] blockbuster from the Telugu industry known as Tollywood.[citation needed]

The other largest film industries are Malayalam cinema, Kannada cinema, Bangla cinema (cinema of West Bengal) and Marathi cinema, which are located in Trivandrum, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Mumbai respectively. The remaining majority portion is spread across northern, western, eastern and southern India (with Gujarati, Punjabi, Odia, Bhojpuri, Assamese Cinema). However, there are several smaller centres of Indian film industries in regional languages centred in the states where those languages are spoken. Indian cinema encloses a number of several artforms like Indian classical music, folk music of different regions throughout the country, Indian classical dance, folk dance and much more. Bollywood, Tamil and Telugu cinemas is the largest portion of the Indian film industry and is viewed all over the Indian Subcontinent, and is increasingly[when?] popular in UK, United States, Australia, New Zealand, Southeast Asia, Africa, the Gulf countries, European countries and China.[citation needed] The largest film studio complex in the world is Ramoji Film City located at Hyderabad, India, which opened in 1996 and measures 674 ha (1,666 acres). Comprising 47 sound stages, it has permanent sets ranging from railway stations to temples.

By 1986, India's annual film output had increased from 741 films produced annually to 833 films annually, making India the world's largest film producer. As of 2014, Bollywood represents 45℅ of Indian net box office revenue, while both Tamil and Telugu cinemas represent 36%, and the rest of the regional film industries constitute 21% of Indian cinema.

United Kingdom[edit]
Main article: Cinema of the United Kingdom William Friese-Greene London IMAX has the largest cinema screen in Britain with a total screen size of 520m².

The United Kingdom has had a significant film industry for over a century. While film production reached an all-time high in 1936, the "golden age" of British cinema is usually thought to have occurred in the 1940s, during which the directors David Lean, Michael Powell, (with Emeric Pressburger) and Carol Reed produced their most highly acclaimed work. Many British actors have achieved worldwide fame and critical success, such as Maggie Smith, Roger Moore, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Daniel Day-Lewis, Gary Oldman, and Kate Winslet. Some of the films with the largest ever box office returns have been made in the United Kingdom, including the third and fourth highest-grossing film series (Harry Potter and James Bond).

The first moving picture was shot in Leeds by Louis Le Prince in 1888 and the first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London in 1889 by British inventor William Friese Greene, who patented the process in 1890.

Two of the top eight highest-grossing films worldwide of all time[when?] have some British historical, cultural or creative dimensions: Titanic (1997), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), made in New Zealand, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2005). Adding four more Harry Potter films and one more Lord of the Rings movie, plus the Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland (2010), and more than half of the top twenty most financially successful[when?] films, had a substantial British dimension.[original research?]

British influence can also be seen with the 'English Cycle' of Disney animated films, which include Alice in Wonderland (1951), Peter Pan (1953), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), The Sword in the Stone (1963), and The Jungle Book (1967). Disney first became interested in live-action films as a means of using financial reserves which had built up in Britain, and could not be repatriated owing to exchange controls, by making two films from Scottish and English sources. These were Treasure Island (1950) and The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952), which were both successes at the box office. The studio continued to draw on British source material for its animated films after Walt Disney's death in 1967, with the cartoon feature films Robin Hood (1973), The Rescuers (1976) and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977), one of many Disney to draw on A. A. Milne's characters.

In the 1970s and 1980s, British studios established a reputation[citation needed] for great special effects in films such as Superman (1978), Alien (1979), and Batman (1989). Some of this reputation was founded on the core of talent brought together for the filming of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) who subsequently worked together on series and feature films for Gerry Anderson. The Bristol-based Aardman Animations is known for its stop-motion animation.

The London-based visual effects company Framestore, with Tim Webber the visual effects supervisor, have worked on the films The Dark Knight (2008) and Gravity (2013), with new techniques involved in Gravity taking three years to complete.

Poland[edit]
Main article: Cinema of Poland

Further information: Polish Film School and HollyŁódź Off Plus Camera Film Festival in Kraków, 2012, with Andrzej Seweryn, Daniel Olbrychski, and Wojciech Pszoniak on stage.

The history of Cinema of Poland is almost as long as the history of cinematography, and it has universally recognized achievements, even though Polish films tend to be less commercially available than films from several other European nations.

After World War II, the communist government built an auteur-based national cinema, trained hundreds of new directors and empowered them to make films. Filmmakers like Roman Polański, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Agnieszka Holland, Andrzej Wajda, Andrzej Żuławski, Andrzej Munk, and Jerzy Skolimowski impacted the development of Polish film-making. In more recent years, the industry has been producer-led with finance being the key to a film being made, and with many independent filmmakers of all genres, Polish productions tend to be more inspired by American film.

The Polish Film School was under heavy influence of Italian neorealists. It took advantage of the liberal changes in Poland after 1956 Polish October to portray the complexity of Polish history during World War II and German occupation. Among the most important topics were the generation of former Home Army soldiers and their role in post-war Poland and the national tragedies like the German concentration camps and the Warsaw Uprising. The political changes allowed the group to speak more openly of the recent history of Poland. However, the rule of censorship was still strong when it comes to history after 1945 and there were very few films on the contemporary events. This marked the major difference between the members of the Polish Film School and Italian neorealists.

The Polish Film School was the first to underline the national character of Poles and one of the first artistic movements in Central Europe to openly oppose the official guidelines of Socialist realism. The members of the movement tend to underline the role of individual as opposed to collectivity. There were two trends within the movement: young directors such as Andrzej Wajda generally studied the idea of heroism, while another group (the most notable being Andrzej Munk) analysed the Polish character via irony, humor and a dissection of national myths.

Nigeria[edit]
Main article: Cinema of Nigeria

The cinema of Nigeria, often referred to informally as Nollywood, was the second largest film industry, in terms of output, in 2009 and the third largest, in terms of overall revenues generated, in 2013. Its history dates back to as early as the late 19th century and into the colonial era in the early 20th century. The history and development of the Nigerian motion picture industry is sometimes generally classified in four main eras: the Colonial era, Golden Age, Video film era and the emerging New Nigerian cinema.

Egypt[edit]
Main article: Cinema of Egypt

Since 1976, Cairo has held the annual Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF), which is accredited by the International Federation of Film Producers Association. In 1996, the Egyptian Media Production City (EMPC) was inaugurated in 6th of October City south of Cairo, although by 2001, only one of 29 planned studios was operational. Censorship, formerly an obstacle to freedom of expression, has decreased remarkably by 2012, when the Egyptian cinema had begun to tackle boldly issues ranging from sexual issues to heavy government criticism.

The 1940s, 1950s and the 1960s are generally considered the golden age of Egyptian cinema. As in the West, films responded to the popular imagination, with most falling into predictable genres(happy endings being the norm), and many actors making careers out of playing strongly typed parts. In the words of one critic, "If an Egyptian film intended for popular audiences lacked any of these prerequisites, it constituted a betrayal of the unwritten contract with the spectator, the results of which would manifest themselves in the box office." Since the 1990s, Egypt's cinema has gone in separate directions. Smaller art films attract some international attention but sparse attendance at home. Popular films, often broad comedies such as What A Lie!, and the extremely profitable works of comedian Mohamed Saad, battle to hold audiences either drawn to Western films or, increasingly, wary of the perceived immorality of film.

Iran[edit]
Main article: Cinema of Iran

The cinema of Iran (Persian: سینمای ایران) or cinema of Persia refers to the cinema and film industries in Iran which produce a variety of commercial films annually. Iranian art films have garnered international fame and now enjoy a global following.

Along with China, Iran has been lauded as one of the best exporters of cinema in the 1990s, according to Jamsheed Akrami. Some critics now[when?] rank Iran as the world's most important national cinema, artistically, with a significance that invites comparison to Italian neorealism and similar movements in past decades. German filmmaker Werner Herzog has praised Iranian cinema as one of the world's most important artistic cinemas.

Japan[edit]
Main article: Cinema of Japan

Japan has one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world; as of 2010, it was the fourth largest by number of feature films produced. Movies have been produced in Japan since 1897, when the first foreign cameramen arrived.[citation needed]

In a Sight & Sound list of the best films produced in Asia, Japanese works made up eight of the top 12, with Tokyo Story (1953) ranked number one.[citation needed] Tokyo Story also topped the 2012 Sight & Sound directors' poll of The Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time, dethroning Citizen Kane, while Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954) was voted the greatest foreign-language film of all time in BBC's 2018 poll of 209 critics in 43 countries. Japan has won the Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film four times (Rashomon, Gate of Hell, Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto, and Departures), more than any other Asian country.[when?]

Korea[edit]
Main article: Cinema of Korea

Further information: Cinema of South Korea and Cinema of North Korea

The term cinema of Korea (or Korean cinema) encompasses the motion picture industries of North and South Korea. As with all aspects of Korean life during the past century, the film industry has often been at the mercy of political events, from the late Joseon dynasty to the Korean War to domestic governmental interference. While both countries have relatively robust film industries today[when?][citation needed], only South Korean films have achieved wide international acclaim. North Korean films tend to portray their communist or revolutionary themes.

South Korean films enjoyed a "Golden age" during the late 1950s, and 1960s. By 2005 South Korea had become one of few nations to watch more domestic than imported films in theatres due largely to laws placing limits on the number of foreign films able to be shown per theatre per year. In the theaters, Korean films must be played for 73 days per year since 2006. On cable TV 25% domestic film quota will be reduced to 20% after KOR-US FTA. The cinema of South Korea had a total box office gross in the country in 2015 of ₩884 billion and had 113,000,000 admissions, 52% of the total admissions.[citation needed]

Hong Kong[edit]
Main article: Cinema of Hong Kong

Further information: Cinema of China and East Asian cinema Zhuangzi Tests His Wife (1913) is credited as the first Hong Kong feature film Hong Kong is a filmmaking hub for the Chinese-speaking world (including the worldwide diaspora) and East Asia in general. For decades it was the third largest motion picture industry in the world (after Bollywood and Hollywood) and the second largest exporter of films. Despite an industry crisis starting in the mid-1990s and Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty in July 1997 Hong Kong film has retained much of its distinctive identity and continues to play a prominent part on the world cinema stage. Unlike many film industries, Hong Kong has enjoyed little to no direct government support, through either subsidies or import quotas. It has always been a thoroughly commercial cinema, concentrating on crowd-pleasing genres, like comedy and action, and heavily reliant on formulas, sequels and remakes. Typically of commercial cinemas, its heart is a highly developed star system, which in this case also features substantial overlap with the pop music industry.