The events at Tiananmen Square were a shock. They provoked the birth of the "sixth generation" of filmmakers in China. This generation had a few people who were willing to be completely independent.
I would single out Jia Zhangke (Xiao Wu, Unknown Pleasures, Platform, The World) as the name which stands out from that generation, along with Wang Xiaoshuai (The Days, Beijing Bicycle), Zhang Yuan (Beijing Bastards, East Palace West Palace) and Lou Ye (Weekend Lovers, Suzhou River, Summer Palace).
Everyone was from the Beijing Film Academy since if you had to work you had to go through it. You were officially a director or cinematographer and paid a monthly salary. But Zhangke decided to go independent. He found the money and eventually even the state came to co-produce with him. But the films he independently produced were never distributed in China.
Before Tiananmen, about 140 films were produced, which, for a big country, is nothing. In India, the number for 2007 was over 1,000, and now in China, about 400 films are being produced annually. But there is no use producing films in a country with almost no theatres.
A boom in the construction of theatres has been only recorded in the last three years and the Chinese are hungry for films. Distribution of films is becoming better. Still, there is a problem of the right films making it to the right centres.
A note of caution though