How it all began

Jun and I went to Beijing Film Market with the object of finding a Chinese co-production partner for our movie "Dumpling". We were one of 10 projects accepted into the "Pitch and Catch" session and we worked hard to design a smooth 10 minute pitch in English and Mandarin (see the pitch video). It seems to have been successful because our "dance card" for the Catch session next day was full within 20 minutes.

The picture shows Jun at the table with two interested potential partners from CCTV.

Among the 18 interviews we did that day, was Qian Huayi from Shanghai Bright Pictures, who had come to the Film Festival to meet co-production partners for a project he had on the boil about corruption. The script was originally set in Japan, then Malaysia. Now he was actively considering Australia as the main location. Frankly, he wasn't interested in "Dumpling" and we were very lukewarm about a contentions and highly political subject like corruption. We exchanged business card politely and went our separate ways.

"Dumpling," while arousing a lot of interest and amusement, never really took off with potential co-producers because it did not fit with the current Chinese box office profile. "Old fashioned," "So last year," were the comments.

A year later, Jun got a phone call from Qian Huayi to say that their script now had government approval. It was to be the first officially-sectioned movie treating corruption within the Communist Party. The budget was Aus$12 million, they had investors clamouring to get on board, but he offered us an opportunity to come on board as a 20% investor. If we were able to cashflow the Producers Offset, it would almost cover it. We needed more details, particularly a script.

In 2015, Qian Huayi came to Australia with the main writer and we took them around potential locations in Sydney and Canberra. A month later, the Hong Kong co-producer, director and production manager arrives and we took them around the same locations. They, however, had connections in Melbourne and went home demanding that the main locations be changed. Melbourne knocked us out as investors/co-producers, but back in China a war was brewing between Hong Kong and Shanghai: Shanghai won and the project went back to the beginning. It would be shot in Sydney/Canberra.

All they have to do is re-finance... We thought that is probably the end of it.