Collaboration drives Silk Road film festival

With increasingly frequent film industry exchanges among countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative, the 7th Silk Road International Film Festival highlighted the collaborative production of feature films, documentaries and animations.

A total of 17 specially recommended movies－including Yellow Cat, Sunless Shadows, Persian Lessons and other coproductions－were selected by renowned professionals from more than 3,500 contenders from 116 countries and regions.

The six-day event held in Xi'an, the capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi province, lasted until Friday and over 500 films from home and abroad were screened at outdoor venues, in cinemas and streamed through online platforms.

Of the 102 films that were screened in cinemas, more than 70 percent are from countries and regions involved in the initiative, according to organizers.

Movies from different countries and cultural backgrounds came together at the festival, presenting different ways and styles of storytelling with rich diversity, said Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, a two-time Oscar-winner and the artistic director of a special recommendation group at the event.

Many industry practitioners attended the event online rather than in person due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.

Considering the film industry's situation as a result of the pandemic, many participants of this year's festival expressed their hope that collaboration can lead the industry out of the darkness.

Joachim Ng, director of media and ecosystem development at the Singapore Film Commission, says that Singapore has cooperated with China and other countries to strengthen the exchange of film talent, and is looking forward to jointly promoting the development of the industry through innovative cooperation.

Shaanxi is home to the Terracotta Warriors and the starting point of the ancient Silk Road. First held in 2014, the annual Silk Road International Film Festival is hosted in turn by Shaanxi and East China's Fujian province.