"China has a long history and a vast civilization, which is the foundation of our self-confidence and the source of our strength. ”
In his 2024 New Year message, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out the important role of China's great culture in forging ahead in the new era. The lonely smoke of the desert, the drizzle in the south of the Yangtze River, the nine meanders of the Yellow River, the rushing Yangtze River, Liangzhu, Erlitou, Yinxu oracle bones, Sanxingdui, etc., which are bred by this vast land mentioned by the general secretary, are all rich mines of documentary artists' creations. In 2023, the documentary industry will deeply implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's speech at the Cultural Inheritance and Development Forum, strengthen cultural self-confidence in the first year of fully implementing the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, undertake the important mission of inheriting history, spreading culture, and recording the times, record why the country's march is solid, powerful, stylish, and colorful, and continue to promote cultural prosperity and creative prosperity.
The domestic documentary broadcast in 2023 records the social transition, polishes the historical memory, boosts cultural inheritance, upgrades the expression of voice, enhances value guidance, and reflects the spiritual context of the Chinese nation with the ideological nature of content, the juxtaposition of audiovisual language, and the commonality of international communication, and witnesses the great practice of China's modernization road.
In the era of singing, the majestic power of the country is profoundly demonstrated
Closely following the main theme and firmly grasping the rich connotation and vivid practice of Xi Jinping's socialist thought with Chinese characteristics in the new era, a large number of works play the function of "national album", attach importance to the consciousness of the times and the people, and focus on the brilliant achievements of the development of the new era. Documentaries such as "Xi Jinping's Cultural Relationship", "This Spring - Diplomatic Documentary of the Chinese Head of State in the Spring of 2023", "Ten Years of Drawing" ("Pilot International Edition") resonate with the country; documentaries such as "People's Leader Mao Zedong", "Mao Zedong's Letter Story" and "Chongqing Negotiations" have unique perspectives, rich historical materials and vivid content; "Great Victory: The Apocalypse of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea" reproduces the three-dimensional panorama of the war and spreads the great spirit of resisting US aggression and aiding Korea; the 10th anniversary of the "Belt and Road" initiative, the political commentary of "The Road to Prosperity", Combining documentary and factual facts, "The Wind Rises in the East" shuttles through the thick history of the Silk Road to outline the changes of the past ten years, "China's Business Card on the Belt and Road" shows the fruitful achievements of cooperation and development between China and other countries in the past ten years, and "Bloom", "Hi, Asian Games" and "Peak" and other works excavate the touching stories behind the Asian Games from a multi-dimensional perspective, and record the spirit of pursuing excellence and standing at the forefront of the tide in the subtleties.
In the changes of the times and China's progress, the theme of the documentary "Vision" is broad, which is full of China's surging innovation power and development vitality. At the end of the fourth season, the natural ecology and cultural features of 34 provincial-level administrative regions are fully collected; "National Highway Cruise" explores the vivid cases of development practices in various places in the new era, "The Cornerstone of a Great Power" reveals the key weapons of the country, and various super projects allow the audience to intuitively feel the resilience and vitality of China's economic operation; "The Road to Zero Carbon" observes a series of reforms and innovations in China's green and low-carbon development, and shares Chinese wisdom and solutions with the world; "Ten Thousand Bridges and Flying Frames: A Human Miracle Between Mountains and Waters" Go deep into the front line of bridge construction and tell the great changes in mountain towns with traffic changes; "National Park: The Symbiosis of All Things" focuses on the construction of ecological civilization in the mainland with shocking and exquisite pictures; "Intelligent Era" is based on the birth and development of Chinese's artificial intelligence industry and actively responds to the technology-driven era, both observing reality and looking forward to the future.
Adhere to the great civilization inherited by the great country, and the cultural code constructed by the humanistic documentary in the new era connects the past and the present, learning from the past and the future. As a phenomenal work, "China" (Season 3) traces human civilization in ancient times through thousands of years, has a deep dialogue with the vast history, and creates a contemporary image aesthetics; "In Search of Ancient China" launches a series of seven programs to anchor the scale of civilization, systematically presenting the formation process of 5,000 years of uninterrupted flow and pluralistic integration, "Chinese Words" systematically sorts out the origin and evolution of China's complex languages, "Inheritance" (wisdom) appreciates the dazzling brilliance of intangible cultural heritage, and "A Hundred Years of the Road" "Spring and Autumn in the Cultural Context", "Once Upon a Time in Tianjin" and "Wonderful City" (Season 2) provide insight into the urban fabric and explore the roots and soul of the city; "Song of the Grand Canal" depicts the cultural landscape of the canal in a three-dimensional way in the long river of history, and deeply explores the profound cultural value and spiritual connotation carried by the Grand Canal; "Exploring Civilization in Farming" It vividly presents the endless genetic code of Chinese civilization and the ideological wisdom and spiritual pursuit of the Chinese nation carried by the agricultural civilization; "Fixing the Storm" reads the feelings of Confucianism through Su Shi's legendary life; and "Secret Divine Grass" (Season 4) travels through the ultimate secret realm and feels that the Chinese medicine civilization has a long history and lasts for a long time.
Fully writing a vibrant and steaming China, documentary themes and genres are constantly being updated, and the small stories of ordinary people are intertwined with the big themes of the times. "Industry Image Chronicle" (Season 2) looks at China through all walks of life, touches the pulse of the times, and tastes the bloody life; "China Ambulance", "Shining Pediatrician" and other vivid stories from the perspective of medical staff export knowledge and warm people's hearts; "My Warm World" looks for the most vital stories of ordinary people, depicting the beautiful emotional relationships and spiritual world of Chinese; "Move, Shine Together" tells the vigorous development of mass sports in the new era; "Millennium Shaanxi Cuisine" (Season 2), "Flavor World" (Season 4) explores the warmth of food on the surface and the humanities behind it, and glimpses the legend of the mutual shaping between human beings and food, and the documentary "Tide of the Yangtze River Delta" breaks the problem from five aspects: policy system, infrastructure, scientific and technological innovation, people's livelihood improvement, and ecological and environmental protection, focusing on the vivid and specific practice of the Yangtze River Delta region in implementing the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee.
Break through barriers and multi-modal communication
In 2023, documentary images will explore how technology can better empower content expression, production and dissemination, and the integration of 4K, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and other technologies with art will broaden the lens perspective. "China in Fine Arts" (Season 3) uses 3D technology to showcase the classic works in the collections of major art museums across the country, and deeply refines the cultural identity, aesthetic value and significance of the times. The scientific, historical, and cultural vision of "The Wonderful Journey of the Cute Rabbit" is more vivid due to the integration and application of real-life shooting, model props, and two-dimensional animation. In addition, AIGC will become a new engine for the documentary industry, and there are already a number of AIGC-enabled documentaries in the pipeline.
Documenting China's active embrace of the world and its responsibility as a major country, the 2023 documentary builds a bridge for cultural dialogue and exchange, with flexible and diverse international cooperation, and a thriving overseas expansion that bears fruitful results. In terms of communication perspective, it attaches great importance to a global perspective, "When the Pharaoh Meets Sanxingdui" reveals the same love in the context of different civilizations from the perspective of cultural mutual learning, and "Next Exit" invites foreign young people to enter and experience the real China. On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and France, the Sino-French co-production documentary "Wild Four Seasons: Rare Wild Animals in China" retains a video archive of scientific value; Filmed by five international documentarians, they will talk about their love for China and show the respectable China. In terms of cross-border distribution and communication effectiveness, "Extreme China" (Season 2) was disseminated to 170 countries and regions in 43 languages through the National Geographic Channel, and "Poetry About Ten Thousand Miles" (Season 2) solicited and produced derivative products such as "I Read Poems for You All Over the World", which ignited the enthusiasm of netizens at home and abroad for multilingual communication. "Why China" is not only based on the major research results and latest discoveries of the "Chinese Civilization Exploration Project" and "Archaeological China", but also innovatively tells the story of "pluralism and unity" The story of the formation of the Chinese nation and the creation of Chinese civilization, and announced the launch of the international version of the production, promote overseas dissemination, and further enhance the international influence of Chinese culture, Chinese wisdom and Chinese spirit.
The breakthrough in the documentary circle is also reflected in the docking of different content forms. Guided by marketization, the form of "record +" is becoming more and more abundant, "+ slow live broadcast", "+ short video", "+ variety show", "+ metaverse", "+ e-commerce", etc., and the diversified creative ecology has inspired a new round of content upgrading and reform. "If National Treasures Could Talk" and CMG Observation and other institutions jointly launched the live broadcast of "Thousands of Evening Stars Accompany You on New Year's Eve", with a total of 3.31 million views on the whole network; "Symphony on the New Silk Road" uses the creative technique of short videos to improve editing efficiency, and the content is full and has a good sense of networking; and the police documentary observation reality show "Guarding the Liberation West" presents the group portrait of urban grassroots police in a documentary way, and the integration of law popularization and entertainment is ingenious. The cultivation of documentary cultural IP and the integration of offline business travel are also advancing, the rural revitalization documentary "Let's Go New, Fu Wei" includes the stories in front of and behind the scenes during the filming into the book of the same name, and documentaries such as "China" (Season 3) "But There Are Books" have carried out a series of offline activities, and the integration of humanistic value and economic benefits has increased. In addition, documentary films are also frequently presented, which are full of attraction and appeal. tells the story of the first people's film "Yan'an and the Eighth Route Army" under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, which has gone through ups and downs, "Through the Beacon Fire" completely restores the birth process of documentary images in history;
Accumulate strength to move forward, reshape the platform and talk about development
The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to prosper and develop cultural undertakings and cultural industries, insist on putting social benefits in the first place, unifying social benefits with economic benefits, and improving the modern cultural industry system and market system. In recent years, the thinking of industrialization construction has gradually penetrated into the whole process of documentary from creative research and development, production and broadcasting, publicity and operation, and then to copyright trading, creating an industrial chain with "documentary" as the core, and constantly improving the operation process and specifications of each link, which has become the key direction of high-quality development of documentaries in the new era. In 2023, the documentary industry will find new methods, new ideas, and new voices in content production and broadcasting, and also explore new models and new cooperation in promoting industrial development and platform construction, so as to promote continuous innovation and excellence in the industry.
In 2023, as the largest documentary festival in Asia, China (Guangzhou) International Documentary Festival has been committed to uniting professional institutions at home and abroad, as well as first-class festivals and exhibitions, to promote international co-production. At the 20th opening ceremony, it also officially signed strategic cooperation agreements with three overseas documentary festival and exhibition institutions, including the Mediterranean European Documentary Market, the New Zealand Wingman Film Festival, and the Serbian Documentary Filmmakers Association, and reached cooperation with more than 40 festival institutions and a number of international distribution companies in different aspects to promote Chinese documentaries to better "go global". The 29th China Documentary Academic Festival was held in Shenzhen, and the TV Documentary Academic Committee of the China Television Artists Association successfully completed the re-election, and the members of the new TV Documentary Academic Committee will unite and lead the majority of documentary workers to work together and actively make positive contributions to promoting the high-quality development of TV art. The 2023 Fresh Proposal Lili Real Image Conference will continue to uphold the cross-border and professional characteristics, promote the construction of the documentary cultural and creative park through the integration of documentary-related enterprises and documentary creators, and build a high-quality Lili documentary industry base. The Xin'an Documentary Conference of Anhui Radio and Television Boutique Creation Week promotes information exchange and resource sharing among all parties involved in the creation of documentary content. The Yangtze River Delta Documentary Industry Development Alliance has built a platform for joint creation, promotion, exchange, training, academic, award and other related activities of documentaries, and is committed to strengthening exchanges and cooperation between the documentary industry in the Yangtze River Delta region and domestic and international communities, and jointly drawing the development prospects of the industry.
A few days ago, the "2023 Top Ten Influential Documentaries in China" series of recommendation activities were held, which not only reviewed and summarized the creative experience and excellent works, talents and institutions in 2023, but also summarized the beneficial experience and development trends of thematic documentaries in the innovation and exploration, and provided suggestions and suggestions for promoting the high-quality development of documentaries in the new era.
Following the logic of history, practice, culture, and emotion, in 2023, the documentary industry will strengthen its value guidance in terms of ideology, grasp the theme of the times in creation, cultivate cultural heritage, innovate artistic expression in production, and focus on strengthening international exchanges in communication, which has greatly extended the competitiveness and influence of documentary films. Many masterpieces and models, while preserving the brilliance of the times and inheriting Chinese civilization, have also opened a new era of high-quality development of the documentary industry.
Text: Zhang Yanli (Executive Deputy Director of the New Perspective Center of Radio and Television, Executive Deputy Secretary-General of the Documentary Academic Committee of the China Television Association)
Pictured: Poster
Editor: Wang Yan