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DUT Confucius Institute Hosts Successful Film Festival

DUT Confucius Institute Hosts Successful Film Festival

DUT’s Confucius Institute (DUT CI) recently held its third Chinese Film Festival at Durban’s Suncoast Casino’s Cinecentre. 

The festival, which was attended by DUT students, members of staff and people from Durban, showcased the action crime thriller Saving Mr. Wu directed by Ding Sheng and stars famous Chinese film stars Andy Lau, Wu Ruofu and Wang Qianyuan. The film is based on a true abduction case where one of the cast members, Wu Ruofu was the victim.

The film was released in September 2015 and went on to win the Feature Film of the Year Award. Andy Lau went on to win Best Actor award at the Second Silk Road International Festival while Wang Qianyuan won Best Co-Star award in the 2015 Taiwan Film Festival.

According to Dr Eddie Chaobo Fu, DUT CI Co-Dean, the 2016 Chinese Film Festival is the third one of its kind hosted by the DUT Confucius in Durban among a serious of CI cultural programmes aiming to introduce a modern China and a different Chinese film culture to local communities and to promote the cultural understanding and exchange between China and South Africa.

“The festival this year consists of two sections. The first screened film served as the opening movie and a Chinese Movie Show Week to be hosted at our DUT campuses throughout the whole year with a couple of selected good Chinese movies, will showcase different aspects of Chinese society and Chinese culture,” he said. He added that by choosing newly-screened and well-received Chinese films with clear English subtitles, the Confucius Institute wished to provide a different platform not only for the DUT community, but especially to those who are learning Mandarin at the DUT CI. “The movie is also seen as a way to enhance their learning Mandarin listening and speaking proficiency, but also for a wider Durban community, including the Chinese community at Durban as well, to understand China or their mother country better from a different perspective. To us, a good film is a special art form to highlight a different life or culture of a country far away,” said Dr Fu.

The films screened at DUT CI’s Film Festivals so far have proven to have been welcomed by the invited audience and have effectively increased the interest among the audience in learning more about China.

-Waheeda Peters

Pictured: Dr Eddie Chaobo Fu; Director of the Confucius Institute at DUT and Fathima Hafajee,  Director of Student Services and Development at the DUTY Midlands Centre, at the third Chinese Film Festival at Suncoast Casino’s Cinecentre, Durban. 

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