BAFTA vice president: Movie industry's future lies in cultural collaboration, creative exchange

Cultural collaboration and creative exchange is the way of future for the world movie industry, Duncan H. Kenworthy, a British film and television producer, said in a recent interview with Xinhua. On the trend of movie industry, Kenworthy, vice president of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), said that "the film industry is integrated." Kenworthy came to Hong Kong with some other BAFTA members to promote British movies and seek collaboration with their Chinese counterparts. BAFTA is an independent charity that supports, develops and promotes the art forms of the moving image, including film, television and games. Kenworthy said that BAFTA's annual awards ceremonies are open to films all over the world and meant to inspire practitioners to do good work that benefit worldwide audiences. "I would like our voting members of BAFTA to become more and more familiar with films around the world, particularly in China," he said. The producer's connection with China dated back to eight years ago when he was one of the juries in the Shanghai Film Festival and has made many Chinese friends since then. "Now I think about Chinese films a lot ... If we can make more connections like that,it leads to more collaborations," Kenworthy said, "There is a lot we can learn from Chinese movie making ... It is a global industry. Cultural collaboration and creative exchange is the way of future." Kenworthy is good at making romantic comedies. His producer credits include many well-known movies, such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Lawn Dogs, Notting Hill, Love Actually and The Eagle. "We would like to think that we are not defined by one characteristic," the producer said when asked what is the main feature of British movies. He said he hoped that when thinking of British movies, various types of movie will come to mind. Kenworthy said that the opening ceremony of London Olympic showcased the diversity of British culture, "Pop music is a big thing in England, too. Not just Shakespeare." British movie industry are seen by Kenworthy as competitive, and it is good at producing talents and exporting them to the rest of the world. "Particularly visual effects. We are acknowledged to be the equal of America in terms of visual effects," he said. Kenworthy noted that four British visual effects companies work on almost every big Hollywood movie. Besides, scores of movies are adapted from British novels. "On a large scale, what we are very good at is, nearly all of these big franchise films came from British novels, such as the Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia,Sherlock Holmes." "I guess the biggest franchise is James Bond ... It's an extraordinary achievement to keep franchise going for 50 years with so many films. Certainly the biggest English success story," the producer added. However, he said he was worried that British films are now " existing in the shadow of the American industry" despite its glorious history. "We depend a lot on the American money to go into our films, which means we have to cater to not only British audience, but also American audience as well. We have a dual perspective, not like the case in China which has a huge market," Kenworthy said. The producer expressed the belief that more education will help British and Chinese audiences to learn more about each other's films. It takes time to change from feeling strange to appreciating the differences, he said.