Launched just a few months ago by Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke and distribution veteran Tian Qi, Unknown Pleasures Pictures scored a hit with its first release, Italian production There’s Still Tomorrow.
Released on March 8 to coincide with International Women’s Day, Paola Cortellesi’s black-and-white comedy drama has grossed $6.2M (RMB44.8M) at the China box office and is still on release. Italy’s Vision Distribution is handling international sales on the film and supported Unknown Pleasures Pictures on the China marketing (see Asia sales analysis here for further details).
UPP was launched with the specific aim of bringing a more diverse range of films to Chinese cinemas and audiences. Jia is also the co-founder of Pingyao International Film Festival, which aims to support international arthouse cinema and emerging filmmakers. He is also partnered with Hello Group chairman and CEO Tang Yan on the Wings International fund, designed to support production of promising international film projects.
Pingyao film festival, held in the ancient city of Pingyao in Shanxi province, recently announced that its 2025 edition will take place September 24-30. The festival has a Crouching Tigers section for the first, second and third works of international filmmakers, which hands out cash prizes in the Roberto Rossellini Awards.
Deadline spoke to Unknown Pleasures Pictures co-founder Tian Qi in the run-up to this year’s Cannes film festival.
Deadline: How long have you been working in the distribution business?
Tian Qi: I have been working in the field of distribution for more than 20 years in China. I collaborated with Infotainment China for several projects and also worked for two other Chinese distribution companies before I founded Hero Films in 2020. The international titles we released include The Invisible Guest, Loving Vincent, Mirage, Persian Lessons and National Theatre Live: Prima Facie. In 2025, director Jia Zhangke and I co-founded this new distribution company, Unknown Pleasures Pictures.
DL: Can you share more details of the kind of films you’re acquiring?
Tian Qi: Our next release will be a Japanese animation film with a lot of fans in China; we will announce the title when it’s ready. Meanwhile, we are in the process of acquiring another title, The Great Ambition by Italian director Andrea Segre, and we’re working with some major international distributors such as MK2 and Goodfellas for their line-up in Cannes.
When we make our acquisition choices, it’s usually depending on different factors. First of all, it should bring a more diverse experience to Chinese audiences, to let them discover a different kind of aesthetics of cinema, such as the film Memoria by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, of which the artistic language is particular and unique. It’s the first film I worked with director Jia on before we partnered for the new company.
Secondly, it would empathize with Chinese audiences to have a greater acceptance in the market, such as There’s still Tomorrow that we just released. In general, Unknown Pleasures Pictures will primarily focus on arthouse films, while we will also acquire a number of commercial titles to keep the balance financially.
DL: How does China’s cinema booking system work? And how many screens did you release There’s Still Tomorrow on?
Tian Qi: Currently, in China, we have the flexibility to choose the number of cinemas to release the film. But most commercial blockbusters are likely to send DCPs to all 12,000 cinemas nationwide. As for There’s Still Tomorrow, we booked 6,000 cinemas in the first round, taking half of the total, while there are also smaller-scale films which might only reach 3,000 cinemas. The choice is made by the distributor after negotiations with the chains and cinemas.
DL: How did you handle the marketing for There’s Still Tomorrow?
Tian Qi: There’s Still Tomorrow has already grossed over $6.17M at the Chinese box office, with more than 1.12 million admissions. It has indeed gained huge support from the audiences. In some major cities, we collaborated with the local cinephile clubs, which are the core supporters and transmitters for this kind of film. We would usually start the communication with them, to spread the awareness within their communities. But most importantly, we should break out of the circle, to go beyond the existing audiences and make efforts to reach more incremental audiences.
To this end, we adopted a number of marketing strategies. We noticed that the film resonates with the increasingly strong women’s consciousness among Chinese female audiences, so it meets the demand of the market. We designed and edited hundreds of promotional materials, including themed images and short videos, and released them across social media platforms including Weibo, Rednote (Xiaohongshu) and WeChat. What matters is actually not which social media platform the materials are posted on, it’s whether the content itself would be re-posted by the users voluntarily for a wider spread.
DL: How big are MGs [minimum guarantees] for Chinese rights these days? And do Chinese distributors pay overages?
Tian Qi: Every company in the industry has its own strategy. Some are willing to pay a relatively higher MG, but that may have some potential risks. High MG may lead to a cutdown of promotional budget, which ultimately would affect the performance in the market.
Our strategy is to offer an appropriate, reasonable and affordable MG that allows us a further investment to promote the film properly when it comes to the theatrical release in China. And of course, we would be more than happy to share the profit as agreed with the producer or right holders if there’s any surplus.
DL: Finally, where did you get the English name for your company? Several people have commented that it’s an excellent name for an arthouse cinema distributor.
Tian Qi: Unknown Pleasures Pictures was named by Jia Zhangke, and it is the English title of his third feature, Unknown Pleasures [which premiered in Cannes competition in 2002]. I couldn’t agree more the moment he proposed this name, as Unknown Pleasures meant a lot to me, too. It was my first Jia Zhangke film when I was studying abroad in Toronto. It was from then I came to understand and be interested in arthouse cinema.
