Azerbaijani films shine in Film Festival in China

/AzerNews/

By Amina Nazarli

The Xi'an city of China opened its Silk Road International Film Festival for the first time on October 20-24.

A total of 147 foreign and domestic films from 25 countries were screened in Xi'an, the eastern destination of the ancient trade route.

The five-day festival featured screening of films from Silk Road nations. It included a section in which the viewers picked up the winning films. There were also other section including film forum, film market, industrial forum and a concert with Silk Road theme.

The festival was meant to increase cultural communications and cooperation among countries along the Silk Road as part of China's "Silk Road Economic Belt" and "21st Century Maritime Silk Road" concept.

It was also a way to award popular films and hold forums on Chinese and foreign cooperation in film, film innovation, and showing films on public squares, in communities and at colleges and universities.

Azerbaijan presented two films in the festival: "Downstream" by Asif Rustamov and "Lighthouse" by Fariz Ahmadov which were screened in Chinsha cinema of Xi'an.

Addressing the event, Azerbaijani ambassador to China Latif Gandilov gave information about the history of Azerbaijani cinema.

He stressed that strengthening relations between Azerbaijan and China will help the two cultures become better acquainted with each other.

As a psychological family drama, "Downstream" was produced by Azerbaijanfilm film studio named after Jafar Jabbarli.

The main events in the film are taking place in Kur Olympic training center in Mingachevir, Azerbaijan.

As the result of the tragedy, held in the trainer's family, the main hero changes his mind about life and people.

Another Azerbaijani film, presented in the festival "Lighthouse" was a drama, about relations between a father and his son.

Meanwhile, both films took awards in the festival.

Many influential and outstanding celebrities of film industry, actors as well as China's officials attended the awarding ceremony. Moreover, a joint declaration on cooperation in the field of cinema was adopted during the event.