Exhibition puts works on global stage

City film and TV showcase returns to highlight talent and expertise, William Xu reports in Hong Kong.

The return of the hustle and bustle at media promotion events in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region showed worldwide investors that the city, reviving from the COVID-19 pandemic, is reestablishing itself as a hub for film and TV works, which will allow more high-quality Chinese productions to go global.

Industry practitioners and investors from across the world swarmed to Hong Kong in mid-March to attend a series of events related to the development of film and TV sectors. Among them was the Hong Kong International Film and TV Market, also known as Filmart. As Asia's largest trading market of film and TV productions, the cross-media content trading exhibition returned to the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre this year, after being held virtually over the past three years.

The event, which took place from March 13-16, assembled more than 7,300 industry figures from 41 countries and regions, according to the event's organizer Hong Kong Trade Development Council. Over 330 companies from the Chinese mainland attended Filmart this year, the most in its history, with businesses covering films, TV dramas and animations and 31 companies brought 76 released or in-production movies, including this year's blockbusters The Wandering Earth II and Full River Red, to the event.

The movies were showcased at a designated joint exhibition stand set up by the China Film Co-Production Corp to promote Chinese films. The company also provided one-on-one meetings, online promotions, themed videos and bilingual booklets that introduce overseas investors to the development of Chinese films and policies of coproducing movies with Chinese mainland partners.