Shanghai Media Group Dragon TV Center and Jing'an District Bureau of Culture and Tourism jointly released North Shaanxi Road and Jiangning Road, two episodes of the documentary series "Roads in Shanghai" in March of this year, which made a great flutter. Recently, the production of another three episodes of the "Roads in Shanghai"—Zhangyuan, Changde Road and Julu Road—was launched successively with the support from the Jing'an District Culture Development Fund, aiming to explore blockbusters with inheritance of Shanghai culture, including the "red culture, Shanghai-style culture and Jiangnan culture", which marked the district's upgrading from production to Jing'an "Helps" Production.
Jing'an District is the cultural highland in Shanghai, and Jing'an District Culture Development Fund is the solid backing for "helping" build the cultural highland. With the birth of cultural blockbusters, cultural dramas and cultural feasts, the role which Jing'an plays in helping the mainstream, famous artists and influencers has become a new sample of this cultural highland in Shanghai.
In a bid to fully promote the brand of "Shanghai Culture", Jing'an District is making efforts to build itself into one with cultural advantages with the most obvious cosmopolitanism and Shanghainese characteristics. As the most powerful instrument to "help" build a strong district with culture advantages, Jing'an District Culture Development Fund supports about 40 to 50 projects each year "under the guidance of the government, centering on the mainstream and citizens", including artistic creation projects such as operas, music, stage arts, literary publications and art prints, as well as public cultural activities such as brand festivals & exhibitions, release and communication. Jing'an "Helps" Production encourages cultural "blockbusters, dramas and feasts" to be initiated, premiered, debuted and exhibited in Jing'an, so as to increase the influence of the Shanghai cultural highland.
Jing'an treats the mainstream as the top priority of help. This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China. Jing'an District first focuses on boutique cultural projects, which conform with the main theme and positiveness, to become a "mainstream" cultural highland in Shanghai. According to statistics, among 106 projects which applied for the Fund by 85 declaration subjects this year, 37 have been approved, and 33 social subjects have been funded, of which one-third are series activities including the "Focus on the 70th Anniversary of the Founding of the PRC".
Jing'an helps famous artists as a characteristic. More and more cultural celebrities live and work in Jing'an. Before the Spring Festival this year, Jing'an District Bureau of Culture and Tourism invited cultural celebrities in Jing'an to hold a symposium, and more than 180 people, including composer Chen Gang and writer Zhao Lihong, gathered together. Someone asked, "What does Jing'an District have?" And Wang Yong, President of Music School, Shanghai University, replied quickly, "We have people. The people in this room are the biggest treasure of Jing'an." For example, the Colormen Salon initiated by the famous composer Chen Gang and late writer Cheng Naishan with the characteristics of promoting the Shanghai-style culture, holds culture salons in Hotel Equatorial Shanghai every month, and more and more cultural celebrities such as Qin Yi, Bai Xianyong, Liang Boluo, Chen Yiming, Tan Yuanyuan, Chun Zi and Tong Zirong gather here. With the support of the Fund, the Colormen gradually advances with its steps of development, bringing Shanghai-style culture to schools, enterprises, buildings and communities and influencing more people to love the city.
Influence is the foothold of Jing'an's help, aiming to make influential cultural projects more influential. For example, with Chen Cun, Chairman and a writer of Shanghai Network Writers Association, as one of the leaders, Online Literature Forum, which has taken root on the famous historical and cultural street North Shaanxi Road, has been supported for three years. Since its launch in October 2016, the "Online Literature Forum" on the North Shaanxi Road currently takes place every month, which has become a cultural platform for well-known domestic network writers to communicate with readers and interact with experts from various backgrounds. Through network broadcast, each session of the Forum can gain more than hundreds of thousands of hits, making itself a genuine gold-lettered signboard of Jing'an District as a cultural highland in Shanghai. With the help of the cultural support policies of Jing'an, many influential cultural activities are finally settled in Jing'an District, and grow into more influential cultural brands.
Among projects which were granted the support from the Jing'an District Culture Development Fund in 2019 after public consultation, there are a number of mature projects with brand influence, including the "Angel Confidant Salon" music project established by Cao Peng and his daughter Cao Xiaoxia to help autistic children; the much anticipated "VR Jing'an in the Year of Celebration", an itinerant exhibition across the district to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the PRC, and "Jing'an Old Photograph Artistic Installation" (Jiefang Daily Newspaper); projects with their own characteristics and based on creating "Jing'an culture" radiation areas, such as the "Opera Culture and Art Festival" in Beizhan Community and the "Shang Yi Ya Ji" of Daning Theatre cross-cultural performances, as well as the Maritime Photographic Culture Promotion Association that "warms hearts with a camera", and the "Dream Chasing with Light and Shadow" in Pengpu Town. In addition, due to the novel planning, the newly opened Minsheng Art Museum, Purple Shell Salon in the Hotel Indigo and "Urban Live Music Space" of Shanghai Conservatory of Music have also received much support from the Fund.
Chen Hong, Deputy Director of the Publicity Department of the CPC Jing'an District Committee, and Deputy Party Secretary and Director of Jing'an District Bureau of Culture and Tourism, said that through Jing'an "Helps" Production, a number of celebrities, famous products, famous homes, famous dramas are encouraged and cultivated to gather popularity and fame, focus on creating the first-in-class and original Shanghai culture highland brand with Jing'an characteristics, and make good use of the red culture, Shanghai-style culture and Jiangnan culture, so as to truly become a gold-lettered signboard in the core area of the Shanghai international cultural metropolis.