Word: budgeting
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...Under a 2003 trade pact, Hong Kong - Chinese co-productions are recognized in the lucrative mainland market as Chinese films, not as imports subject to tight quotas. This partly explains the current trend for big-budget period pieces, which by being politically uncontroversial play very well in China. (Each one also bears the potential to cross over to international viewers in the way that Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon did after it was released in 2000.) "I can say the China market is even more important than the Hong Kong domestic market," says John Chong, CEO of Media...
...While some filmmakers are lucky enough to secure funding from elsewhere - Yu Lik-wai's Venice competition entry Plastic City has partners in Hong Kong, Brazil, Japan, France and China - the choice facing most directors is stark. "You either do very low-budget films for the local market, or some side markets like Southeast Asia, or you do really huge, huge-budget films as a co-production with China," says Lau. Medium-sized productions are few, meaning that up-and-coming directors are finding it hard to make the transition to mainstream features. Occasionally, established filmmakers will nurture prot...
...definition of homelessness. "There's a very large housing problem in this country," he says. "But shoehorning new people into the homeless category isn't going to make a hill of beans of difference. It's only going to dilute what we're doing." He points to the U.S. budget for homelessness, which is just $1.5 billion a year. That's barely enough to help fund the Housing First push; it's not going to bail out families caught up in the foreclosure crisis...
...billion isn't enough to help the victims of foreclosure as well as the people pushing shopping carts or sleeping in shelters, then the long-term solution doesn't lie in redefining who is actually homeless until there is a small enough number to be served by the budget. The answer lies in getting enough funding to help all of those who are, particularly in this brutal economic cycle, facing the prospect of having a job and a family but no home. Enough money to meet the challenge: that would be truly good news, no matter how you define...
...There are also the perennial issues that the next Administration must deal with, such as the budget and supplemental war funding (which, if McCain wins, will be one of the most contentious measures). Two other annual thorns - Band-Aid fixes for a middle-class tax hike known as the alternative minimum tax and an ever growing increase in fees paid by Medicare to doctors - could see permanent solutions next year, though such moves would require a serious look at the tax code and reforming entitlements, both tall orders. "These are big problems. I think these are core policy issues...