UAE and China bond over films
With a new content fund as well as efforts to strengthen exchange of talent and content, the countries’ creative pacts are paying dividends
If you think art has the ability to bring people and countries together, then UAE and China have been going full throttle to make good on that belief in the last decade.
From forging bilateral content-exchange partnerships to setting up funds to lure China-based partners in TV and movie production, their efforts have been robust. This region has also proved to be a magnet for Chinese films as a lucrative filming location.
In 2017, Jackie Chan’s Chinese-Indo production Kung Fu Yoga famously camped in Dubai for more than a month to film portions of his action comedy here, while government-backed China Intercontinental Communication Center (CICC) and Image Nation Abu Dhabi established a $300 million (Dh1.1 billion) fund to set the ball rolling for their sevenyear initiative.
“The Culture China-Image Nation Content fund was established to make joint investments in Hollywood based feature films. Dan Gilroy’s Roman J. Israel,
ESQ., which garnered an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for Denzel Washington, was the fund’s first project,” said Michael Garin, CEO of Image Nation in an email to tabloid!. He added that efforts are continuously on to strengthen exchange of talent and content creation ever since Image Nation’s visit to Beijing in January 2016.
“The partnership with CICC was signed and announced in October of that year focusing on talent exchange, content creation and helping to extend the One Belt/One Road Initiative throughout the Arab-speaking world,” Garin said.
The soaring popularity of their Chinese-focused factual entertainment series is also a good sign of the progress
that they have made on cementing creative and cultural pacts.
“Quest Arabiya, Image Nation’s freeto-air Arabic language Factual Entertainment channel, launched a weekly series of Chinese documentaries in 2017 with a focus on social culture and heritage. Now in its second year, the series gives Arab audiences a unique view of life and culture in China and is one of Quest’s most popular series,” he adds.
Bollywood actor Sonu Sood, who was a part of the Kung Fu Yoga team, said his 33-day shoot in the UAE for the film was one of the most iconic and memorable experiences of his career.
Director Stanley Tong’s fantasy adventure, that featured Sood as a rich prince, was filmed in locations across the UAE including JLT, Downtown Dubai, Business Bay and Atlantis, The Palm. It was Chan’s first time filming in the Middle East and the crew was here from September 38 to October 30 in 2015.
“It was one of my most memorable shoots in Dubai with a legendary actor like Jackie Chan in Dubai. The filming support that we were given was world-class and Kung Fu Yoga’s success in China, India and the UAE shows how popular it became... China is a big market for all artists and establishing such cultural ties is a great way to create bonds among us,” said Sood in an interview with tabloid!.
Another Chinese film, Dwelling In The
Fuchun Mountains (which was later called Switch), was also filmed in the UAE in 2012. The production had a 300-strong crew stationed in Dubai. At that time, the film that had its hero scale the Burj Khalifa was known as China’s answer to Mission Impossible.
The action drama starring Andy Lau, with a production budget of more than $20 million, shot key scenes at landmarks including Burj Al Arab and Atlantis, The Palm and the director promised to showcase Dubai in all its splendour.
“Just like in our country, lot of Westerners come into our country [and] want to show it as a dirty place and present very untrue side of China. That’s not going to happen here... I can guarantee you that everything we shoot here will be the best way to show the 300 million people that this is the most beautiful country,” said director Jay Sun Jian Ju during a press conference in 2012.