On October 17, Ambassador Liu Xiaoming met at the Chinese Embassy with Gareth Neame OBE, Ambassador of the GREAT Britain campaign and Managing Director of Carnival Films, Alistair Michie, Secretary General of the British East Asia Council, and Duncan Clark, President of Distribution for Universal Pictures International, and exchanged views with them on China-UK cultural and film exchanges and cooperation.
Ambassador Liu expressed his appreciation of the efforts of British film and television producers to promote cultural exchanges between China and the UK. He said that China and Britain had established a mechanism for High-Level People-to-People Dialogue seven years ago. The two governments also signed an agreement on co-production of films. Film is both an important part and an effective channel of China-UK communication. Britain has a long history and profound cultural heritage. In recent years, excellent films and TV dramas such as The King's Speech and The Darkest Hour are very popular and well received in China. China is ready to further promote the people-to-people and cultural exchanges between the two countries, bring the two peoples closer, and build a sound public support for China-UK relations.
Neame talked about the cooperation between the film companies in the two countries in recent years, saying that films are good forms of artistic expression. By telling stories and displaying images that touch people's hearts, the British films enable the Chinese people feel and experience the British history and culture and enhance mutual understanding between the people of both countries. The TV series Downton Abbey produced by the Carnival Films is very popular in the UK and abroad. It is also well received by many Chinese audiences. He hoped that the feature film Downton Abbey would have the chance to enter the Chinese cinemas as soon as possible. In the future, the British film and television producers would continue to work hard to deepen the cultural and people-to-people exchanges and cooperation between the two countries.
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