Header image source: Blossoms Entertainment via Forbes.
At every alumni sharing session these days, Ding Xiaoyin is the senior known for bringing films like The Wandering Earth 2, Lost in the Stars, and The Eight Hundred to audiences in more than 100 countries and regions.
Few know she once struggled like any other fresh graduate. For four months after graduation, she holed up in a rented room, sending out resumes from the moment she opened her eyes each morning. Job applications vanished into a void, and her dream role remained painfully out of reach.
This contrast is not only a snapshot of Ding’s personal journey, but also a reflection of the often unseen contours of China’s overseas film distribution industry, one that seems to defy traditional ideas of how success unfolds.
It was mid-July in Beijing, with the weather dry and scorching, when 36Kr met Ding at a riverside cafe near Liangmaqiao. The streets were littered with sun-scorched, curled leaves. Mosquitoes buzzed around the riverbank. She swatted them away without pause, her voice steady and her gaze unwavering.
In that noisy, sun-drenched corner of the city, Ding shared her story with clarity and calm. Over the next three hours, she laid out how an ordinary girl spent a decade turning the phrase “Chinese cinema” from a classroom footnote into a presence in theaters across more than 100 countries.
She spoke about shedding her early illusions about traditional media, her accidental entry into film, how she cried her way through graduate school in the US, and how she ended up selling Chinese films to Mongolia, Serbia, and Norway from a small office in Beijing. She spoke of her boss, her colleagues, her mother, and the unseen nights spent watching screeners, revising contracts, and writing reports.
She also talked about how opportunity was caught by long-term thinking, how near misses were salvaged by sheer persistence, how an industry was reshaped bit by bit, and how a new world slowly opened up.
“I’m not someone with a big dream,” she said. “I just want to do everything as well as I possibly can.”
That stubborn streak
Back in 2012, fresh out of the undergraduate program in audiovisual translation at the Communication University of China—a field so niche that the school remains the only one in the country to offer it as a standalone major—Ding stood at an unpromising starting line. As the fifth cohort of a program that would run for only ten years, she graduated into a market where dubbed films were fading and domestic film capital was booming. With the old path narrowing, she set her sights elsewhere.
She decided to pursue a master’s degree in film at the University of Southern California (USC).
There, for the first time, she saw just how absent Chinese cinema was in the global imagination. Even in chapters about Asian films, textbooks mostly cited Japanese and South Korean examples. When Chinese films were mentioned, a silence would fall in class. She found herself bristling with frustration: China had already produced both classics and blockbusters by then, films that deserved a wider audience. That moment sparked a belief that would become central to her career: “Chinese cinema should go global.”
But no road is ever easy. “I cried my way through grad school,” she recalled.
After turning in a short, two-page paper, her Indian American professor asked to meet. Gently, she advised Ding to submit outlines before writing and suggested using USC’s writing center to get help from native speakers. She even granted Ding an extra two weeks for the midterm paper.
The special treatment left Ding with mixed feelings.
Grateful, yes, but also fired up. From that point on, she became a fixture in professors’ office hours, tackling every recommended reading, showing up early for every workshop. Her graduation exam was a grueling two-day, two-paper test that required citations from a 100-title reading list covering the full breadth of film theory. To cope, she got up at 6 a.m, read three books every three days, and finished ten books a month.
Even after graduating, Ding found no place in the US job market.
In May 2014, she stayed in Los Angeles and threw herself into job hunting. She checked company sites, job boards, and niche forums every morning, cataloging new listings and writing 20 personalized cover letters a day. She never sent mail en masse.
But every interview hit the same wall: “Do you need a work visa?” Once she said yes, it was over.
The US film industry rarely sponsors visas, and most companies prefer legal or business backgrounds. “Film is ultimately a business. They want operators, not theorists.” At the time, Hollywood had no shortage of bilingual staff. There was no perceived need to hire for China-specific roles.
Her closest shot was at Disney. A new unit for local production in China got her to the final round, but the department was still in formation and couldn’t commit to sponsorship.
Others might have clung to hope. Ding looked up and pivoted. “Chinese venture capitalists were buying up US theaters and studios. Maybe there were more opportunities back home.” She stopped applying and wrote to Disney: she was giving up the wait.
On the day she left the US, she posted a WeChat update: “Los Angeles, see you next time.” No drama, no farewell, just a battle cry. “As long as I’m in this industry, I’ll be back,” she said.
Shortly after returning to China, a former supervisor from her internship at Huayi Brothers reached out: “We’re hiring in Beijing. Want to come talk?”
That turn of events would make Ding one of the earliest professionals in the past decade to truly take Chinese films overseas.
The belief in longtermism
Ding didn’t like her job during the first year. The thrill she once felt during her internship from getting to work with foreign talent vanished. As a full-time employee, her daily grind involved reviewing contracts, translating documents, and liaising with buyers. She quickly realized that international film distribution was, at its core, just sales.
“I started as a sales assistant and wasn’t even qualified to handle actual sales.”
In the US, distribution resources are concentrated in the top 10% of companies. Everyone else scraps for leftovers. In independent film, the sales team is the lifeline even before a movie shoots. They package the project—director, script, cast—and pitch it globally at Cannes, Berlin, and Toronto. Contracts, completion bonds, insurance, tax credits, and bank loans all stack together to form the final dollar budget. As long as the film is delivered, buyers must pay the balance.
To outsiders, going to Cannes might sound glamorous. But for entry-level workers, international film festivals mean grinding through dozens of back-to-back meetings, each lasting at least 30 minutes.
The physical strain was manageable. The disillusionment hit harder. Ding had loved film since childhood and had spent years surrounded by people who revered it. It was tough to accept that “film is a business, and I’m a salesperson.”
Her boss, Leslie, saw something in her. Over the years, she noticed Ding never shied away from problems. She would communicate tirelessly with distributors and producers to find solutions, and these were traits deemed essential for selling Chinese films abroad, where linguistic and cultural differences abound.
Sensing Ding’s struggle, Leslie offered advice:
“No matter what you do, build one skill you’re known for. If people associate you with that one thing, you’ve made it.”
Ding began to realize her value didn’t depend on labels, but on being irreplaceable.
She started to believe that focusing on one thing, and doing it deeply, was a kind of cool.
Around this time, China’s film market was on the climb. In 2014, domestic box office revenue reached RMB 29.6 billion (USD 4.1 billion), making China the world’s second-largest film market and accounting for 75% of global box office growth. It was a golden era for content, capital, and talent.
To gain a fuller view of distribution, Ding left IM Global for a studio-side role.
The switch meant a 50% pay cut and a leaner team, but she never regretted joining Beijing Culture. There, she sought to learn all facets of the job.
As a studio executive, she got closer to the filmmaking process. One evening, on the last day of the Spring Festival season, she watched The Wandering Earth alone in IMAX. As the credits rolled and the lights came on, she sat still, grateful for her role as a film distributor.
When she first saw the project, it was just a storyboard script. She had watched it evolve through countless revisions and had helped secure its launch on Netflix.
For the first time, Ding felt like she had truly “grown up with a film.” Though her title was head of international sales and acquisitions, she worked across the entire pipeline, from negotiating with directors and producers in early development to handling on-set logistics and legal work during production, to managing international sales and film festival appearances in Cannes and Toronto.
Along the way, she realized that China lacked the infrastructure to replicate Hollywood’s sales-financing model. There were no equivalents of sales agents, no completion bonds, and no bank loans against presales. Films were shot first and sold later, and international sales were an afterthought. As a result, many titles were underpriced or ignored abroad, leaving Chinese distributors with little leverage.
In contrast, US films similar in scale often sold international rights for tens of millions of USD. For independent US films, international presales are often key to financing, making sales companies crucial.
After a year in the studio system, Ding knew she had to build something new. She founded Blossoms Entertainment, a platform-based film service firm that could participate in every stage of a film’s life cycle with flexibility and control.
Meaning behind the name? A wish for the market to bloom with diversity.
The film merchant in a crisis
In 2019, with China’s annual box office topping RMB 60 billion (USD 8.4 billion), many in the industry believed “the future is now.” Ding launched her company that November.
Then came the pandemic. Two months later, cities went into lockdown, US distributors exited China, and the film industry ground to a halt.
“I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I felt lost.”
But the crisis also brought opportunity. Netflix capitalized on the content shortage, using titles like Squid Game to cement its lead. Meanwhile, Ding found her unexpected opening in a genre no one else had touched: online feature films.
On the fourth day of Lunar New Year, a South Korean client called with a question: “There’s demand for Chinese online feature films in Korea, but Youku lacks a local partner. Can you help?” Ding reached out to a former classmate, who’s a producer at Youku, only to hear that no one knew how to handle the new business line.
To seize the opportunity, Ding pitched an unconventional model. Her company would act as a middleman, buying the rights to Youku’s library and reselling them abroad, profiting from the price spread. Youku, trusting her, chose instead to let Ding handle the deal professionally, as though distributing a theatrical film.
But there was a deadline. Youku gave her six months to prove that South Korea could be a launchpad for broader collaborations. With over 600 films in the catalog, Ding returned to her grad school mode: watching at high speed, taking notes, and grading each film using her own scale to identify those with international potential.
She worried low-budget titles would be dismissed by existing clients used to high-end films. But her concerns were unfounded. “No one rejects a film just because it’s Chinese,” she said. International buyers are practical. All they care about is content-market fit.
To her surprise, the first batch of films sold to South Korea performed so well they surpassed their guaranteed returns.
Over the next few years, Ding didn’t just push China’s feature films abroad. She also revived opportunities in traditional cinema, expanding into TV and animation. Most recently, her team helped launch The Legend of Hei 2.
Pioneering new frontiers
As market timing faded, professionalism became Ding’s cornerstone.
Her vision was to replicate the verifiable sales processes used in the US, but with a compact team. After US sales firms withdrew from China, there were few places left for local newcomers to learn the ropes. So Ding built her own system based on her experience, spanning custom reporting templates, contract workflows, and royalty tracking software.
Take Delicious Romance, a small film spun off from a Tencent web series. When pitching to Netflix, Ding insisted on a two-month theatrical window first and set her sights on Thailand.
Why Thailand?
Historically, Chinese films sold best in countries with large Chinese-speaking populations like Singapore and Malaysia. Thailand’s own entertainment industry was already robust, so it didn’t “need” Chinese content.
But Ding did her homework. Every time she entered a new market, she immersed herself in its culture and viewing preferences. She found that Thai audiences loved romantic comedies with soft, youthful tones.
She was right. Thai actor Patrick Nattawat Finkler, who cameoed in the film, drew a fan-driven surge in attendance. The movie went on to perform across three fronts: box office, Netflix release, and online buzz, all of which boosted its market value.
Recently, her company also expanded into Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and other emerging territories. A curated batch of 30 films is now rolling out across five countries.
But film sales are also a people business.
“Reliable” was how a South Korean friend once described Ding. Early in her career, she helped him solve multiple work problems. Later, he became her first client in the online feature film segment.
He first met Ding when she was hustling at IM Global’s flashy booth near Santa Monica Beach, trying to sell a film she herself didn’t believe in. But she pitched it tirelessly, from every angle. They ran into each other again at the airport in Los Angeles. “She looked exhausted,” he recalled. Still, she suggested grabbing a drink. That conversation sparked a lasting friendship. He sent her kimchi by the gallon. During the pandemic, he mailed her face masks from Korea.
Ding treasures these little moments of human connection.
She still remembers how, in her first month on the job, her boss Leslie would revise every email she wrote. In their three years working together, Leslie never once asked her to handle errands or expenses.
Now a leader herself, Ding tries to do the same, shielding her staff when needed and pushing them to grow.
She encourages her team to attend Cannes and Berlin in person, hoping they learn by doing. When The Wandering Earth held a special screening at the United Nations, her staffer Grace was suddenly asked to take charge. Panicked, she called Ding late at night: “I can’t do it. I’ll mess this up.” The next day, Ding sent a bilingual friend with event experience to support her.
Ding hardly rests, but often reminds her team to take care of themselves. She recommends morning stretching and herbal teas. Her colleagues worry she works too much, but are also thankful that her workaholic-like intensity has saved them countless times in crunch moments.
One staffer, Fifi, said Ding is “someone who knows how to seize opportunities.” But Ding doesn’t see it that way. To her, it’s all about preparation. She never stopped honing her skills or deepening her understanding of the industry. That diligence, she said, is what turned seeming luck into inevitability.
The following transcript has been edited and consolidated for brevity and clarity.
36Kr: What are some practical skills needed for international film distribution?
Ding Xiaoyin (DX): Beyond domain expertise, the most important trait is initiative. Don’t be afraid of rejection. If someone doesn’t respond to my email, I’ll call their office, timed to their work hours, of course. I learned that during grad school in the US, where no one solves problems for you. You have to learn to speak up and communicate without overthinking.
Attention to detail is also crucial. For example, always consider time zones when sending emails. Aim to have them land during the recipient’s morning work hours, not as they are winding down. Small things like that can influence how your email is received. These details matter in overseas distribution.
36Kr: Are you concerned about bias against Chinese films in international markets?
DX: Not really. We focus on underdeveloped territories, such as places like Serbia, Bosnia, Mongolia, Norway, and Finland. We build relationships with local distributors and send them curated selections that respect cultural and linguistic differences. Our goal is to showcase the range and quality of Chinese cinema.
There might be differences in taste, but that’s not the same as discrimination. More than anything, we want to challenge outdated perceptions. Right now, revenue isn’t the priority. Changing mindsets is. We’ve found that once distributors really understand Chinese films, they start to appreciate them. Even if they are not interested today, we still encourage them to watch. You never know. The aim is to plant seeds for long-term collaboration.
36Kr: After Ne Zha 2 became a hit, there was criticism of its overseas rollout. What’s your take?
DX: There are misunderstandings about how film distribution works. A release strategy depends on many factors: genre, market expectations, production timelines, and when the overseas team gets involved. People assume that strong domestic box office should translate directly into overseas success, but it doesn’t work that way. Every film is different.
Unlike Hollywood, Chinese films can rarely launch globally in sync. International release requires long lead times to coordinate logistics, marketing, and scheduling. The public often only sees the final result—the delays, limited screenings, or lack of buzz. While those criticisms are understandable, I hope people give us more time. We’re still improving.
36Kr: Given your film background, do you ever want to direct something yourself?
DX: I’ve always had that thought. My undergrad major was niche, but that gave me unique stories to tell. I’d love to make a grounded campus drama, something like Our Shining Days, but for translation students. During the pandemic, I saw a classmate who studied Vietnamese help translate PPE (personal protective equipment) manuals. That really moved me. Even supposedly unpopular majors can shine in critical moments.
36Kr: What advice would you give to current students in small majors?
DX: Don’t feel like your major limits your future. Every discipline has value, and every experience can become an asset. Try new things while you’re still in school. Don’t fear failure. The world moves fast and can feel isolating, but if you keep going, you’ll find your place.
KrASIA Connection features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This article was written by Tian Mi for 36Kr.