Editor's note: Yu Mengjie is a graduate from Clark University with a master's degree in communication. She works in the field of international film content distribution. The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

The COVID-19 outbreak has had a significant impact on China's economy, and the film industry is one of the most affected sectors. Besides the quarantine of major cities and population centers in Hubei Province, most of the Chinese people were asked to self-isolate at home to avoid infection. Shopping malls, cinemas and restaurants either closed or were operating without customers.

The outbreak coincided with the biggest Chinese holiday – the Lunar New Year. For the film industry, it is usually the busiest time of the year. The Chinese box office has kept growing for more than five years, thanks in part to the Lunar New Year holiday.

However, quarantine measures boosted in-home video on demand (VOD) to some extent. According to data, during the Lunar New Year holiday, the daily active users of smart TV were higher than the last two years, and daily active users and watch time of streaming media under BATs (Tencent Video, Youku Video, iQiyi Video) also increased.

Film-making is also going through a hard time. Hengdian World Studio, Xiangshan Global Studios, and many other studios have shut down. Productions have been suspended or even canceled since January.

To deal with this hard time, many local governments have introduced policies and used financial ways to support the development of the film industry. For example, Beijing has signed a measure to subsidize the film industry, reduce the financing cost of film and television companies and allow cultural companies to defer social security payments. Jiangsu Province allocated 10 million yuan (1.4 million U.S. dollars) to subsidize the film industry and strengthen financial support for film practitioners.

For the past five years, China's film industry has shown a good momentum of vigorous development, with the total screen numbers and box office on an upward trend.

Will the outbreak leave a lasting effect on China's film industry? Looking back at history, the outbreak of SARS in 2003 also hit the market for a while. At that time, many producers voluntarily postponed the release dates of their movies. According to the Hong Kong Motion Picture Industry Association, "March box office receipts plummeted 47 percent to 5.6 million dollars compared with the previous year" and "single-screen theaters in Shanghai were forced to close and cinemas that were still open were selling tickets at a 50 percent discount." But the box office gained momentum by the third quarter of the year, and by the end of the year, the total annual box office reached 1 billion yuan for the first time.

During SARS, a series of countermeasures were taken, which later proved to be positive for the market in the long term. Those measures included opening up the market to foreign participators and creating an environment for private film companies to emerge.

Although SARS and COVID-19 were two separate public health events, we indeed could learn from previous cases.

According to Liang Junjian, associate professor at the School of Journalism and Communication of Tsinghua University, the effects of the outbreak are temporary. Many premiers have been rescheduled during the outbreak and they are now looking for a better screening chance. After the outbreak is over, the public will also need entertainment activities to return to normal life. By then, the cinema lines will see a significant rebound. Moreover, the temporarily shutdown also provides an occasion for movie theaters to update their facilities and services.

What we can do now is stay cautious, make our own effort to fight the outbreak, and be confident in the future.

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