Danny Boyle and Halle Berry at the Yue-Sai Kan's Pre-Festival welcome party

British director Danny Boyle

Chinese after-party for Oscar champion

"I hope this is a universal story that connects nations," says Danny Boyle, director of Slumdog Millionaire when he was in Beijing on Tuesday to promote the film.

Having swept the 81st Academy Awards with eight wins including that of the Best Picture and Best Director, the film hits Chinese mainland theaters today.

Boyle is optimistic about the film's reception in China, a country often compared with India in terms of its locations, population and speedy economic development.

"China and India both have huge populations," he said. "In both countries there is a huge mass of ordinary people, who will find that the character's life story could be theirs, too. Everybody's life story is worth something - that's one of the reasons this film works all over the world."

Boyle was delighted about the film's success in South Africa, where it debuted in the same week as The Watchman. It was only shown in half as many screens as the blockbuster but took twice as much money.

As one of 20 foreign films annually screened on the Chinese mainland, the rags-to-riches tale will hit some 2,000 theaters across the country.

"The film shows a concern for the grass roots, is inspirational and has a special artistic beauty," said Weng Li, a spokesman for China Film Group, which handles the importing of foreign films to Daily Variety. Weng also revealed CFG is considering importing more Oscar films to China this year.

Slumdog Millionaire premiered in Hong Kong on Feb 26 and raked in HK$1 million ($128,899), dwarfing previous first-day takings there by Oscar winners like Million Dollar Baby (HK$138,863) in 2005 and Crash (HK$114,922) in 2006.

It has generated widespread controversy in India, however. Some people criticized Boyle for depicting their country as poor, dirty and backward, while others cheered its revelation of the country's true nature.

Boyle laughed off the issue: "It is democracy," he said. "India has a billion people. They disagree with everything all the time, and they are so full-on, never half-hearted. It is full of debate there and it's good debate."

The controversy, Boyle believes, stems to a large extent from India's own film industry.

"Bollywood tends to depict only near-childish fantastic pictures of the middle class - that tends to be Bollywood's big obsession," he said. "Some Bollywood people think films should not focus on slums, while others say that's exactly how Bollywood pictures would improve, by actually catering to more ordinary people."

Boyle, who denied he was being lined up to direct the next Bond film, shares his views of Hollywood.

"Hollywood is business, just like Bollywood," he said. "It turns out hundreds of films and caters to different things. It does not really suit me.

"I like to take a limited amount of money and try to make it feel like 100 million dollars on the big screen. You can do that slightly better outside the Hollywood system. I call it working off the radar, so that nobody knows what you are doing."

If you were making Slumdog Millionaire in Hollywood, Boyle explained, its central character, Jamal, would never have been tortured at the start of the film and the kids would never have been blinded.

"They would say 'forget about that, people will leave the cinema if you show that scene'. And you would never have the song and dance at the end, because the tone changes too much. What they do is go for the middle ground - but it is things off the middle-ground that really interest me."

Oscar ratings improve as "Slumdog Millionaire" dominates awards

The graphics shows British director Dan Boyle's rags-to-riches love story "Slumdog Millionaire" which won big at the 81st Academy Awards Sunday night,on Feb.22.2009,in Los Angeles, grabbing eight Oscars including best picture and best director.

Preliminary numbers released Monday showed that ratings for the 81st Academy Award show overnight climbed about six percent from last year's record low.

The ABC-produced Oscar telecast show, where British director Dan Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire" took eight statuettes including best picture, probably had an average viewership of more than 34 million across the United States, according to a market research firm.

Preliminary numbers from Nielsen Media Research, which measure roughly 50 of the biggest markets in the U.S., showed that New York, Chicago and Los Angeles were among the markets where most households tuned in to watch the film industry's annual gala show.

Although total viewer estimates are expected to be issued later in the day, it is a good bet that this year's Oscar show will rise comfortably ahead of last year's all-time low. About 32 million U.S. viewers watched the show last year.

Last year's record-low ratings prompted organizers to change their traditional format to hand out the awards and present more dance-and-song performances during the ceremony hosted by Australian actor Hugh Jackman.

Seven EU-funded films to compete for 13 Oscar Awards

British director Danny Boyle attends a news conference for his new film "Slumdog Millionaire" in New Delhi January 21, 2009.

Seven films funded by the European Union (EU)'s MEDIA film support program are set to compete in 13 categories at this year's Oscar Awards ceremony to be held next Sunday, according to the European Commission on Thursday.

Among the films, "Slumdog Millionaire" (UK/U.S.) will compete in 9 categories including the Best Film and Best Director, and "Der Baader Meinhof Komplex" (Germany), "Entre les murs "("The Class") (France) , and "Waltz with Bashir" (Israel/Germany/France) will fight for the Best Foreign language Film prize. "Entre les murs " won the Palme d'Or at the 2008 Cannes film festival.

Meanwhile, "Man on Wire" (UK/U.S.) is nominated in the Best Documentary Feature category, "The Duchess" (Britain/France/Italy)in the Art Direction/ Costume Design category, and "Happy Go Lucky" (Britain) in the Best Original Screenplay category.

In 2008, two MEDIA-funded films brought home Oscars, with the Austrian-German co-production "The Counterfeiters" winning the Best Foreign Language Film award. In the last three years, MEDIA-funded films have won a total of eight Oscar awards.

"The diversity and riches of European film is well reflected in this year's Oscar nominations," said Viviane Reding, EU Media Commissioner. "I see this as a great pay off for the European Union's efforts to make European cinema more competitive by supporting the development of films made or co-produced in Europe, their distribution across borders, as well as the use of digital new technologies."

The MEDIA program provided significant financial support to these films figuring high on the nominations list of the Oscars ceremony. The total contribution from the MEDIA program for these films alone amounted to three million euros (3.9 million U.S. dollars) , with even more support likely to follow for distributing the film to cinemas.

The MEDIA program plays a crucial role in supporting Europe's audiovisual sector through the development and distribution of thousands of films as well as training activities, festivals and promotion projects throughout Europe, according to the European Commission.

Nine out of every ten feature films in Europe distributed outside their home country received MEDIA support every year, said the Commission.

The program's overall objectives are to strengthen the competitiveness of the European audiovisual sector by facilitating access to financing and promoting use of digital technologies, to reflect and respect Europe's cultural identity and heritage, and to increase the circulation of European audiovisual works inside and outside the EU. In 2008 the MEDIA program supported over 1,800projects with a total 107 million euros (139 million dollars).

Hathaway,Cruz and other celebs arrive at nominees luncheon for 81st Oscars

Actor Josh Brolin, nominated for best supporting actor for his role in "Milk", arrives at the nominees luncheon for the 81st annual Academy Awards in Beverly Hills, California February 2, 2009.

Director Danny Boyle, nominated for best director for his film "Slumdog Millionaire", arrives at the nominees luncheon for the 81st annual Academy Awards in Beverly Hills, California February 2, 2009.

Stars attend annual Directors Guild Awards in LA

Director Danny Boyle poses with his award for outstanding directorial achievement for the feature film "Slumdog Millionaire" at the 61st annual Directors Guild of America Awards in Los Angeles January 31, 2009. The DGA awards honor outstanding directorial achievement in feature film, documentary and television.