Who's in

Miao rising

Rising mainland actress Miao Pu is expected to make a big splash at the 20th Tokyo International Film Festival that runs through October 28. As the star of two films being screened at the festival, Miao did not hide her ambition to grab the award for best actress. She's been nominated for it.

Crossing Over (Fenghuang) was shown at the opening night of the 35th Anniversary of Japan-China Friendship Memorial Screening.

Set in China in the 1920s and inspired by a true story, the film is a touching epic about the tragic love between a Japanese man and a Chinese woman who meet in prison.

Chinese actors have done well historically at the Tokyo festival. Established director Zhang Yimou won the award for best actor in 1987 for a film about rural China entitled Old Well (Laojing).

Nanking hero to hit the screens

Mainland actress Zhang Jingchu is to star in The Diaries of John Rabe (Labei Riji), a biopic about a German who rescued tens of thousands of Chinese in a massacre 70 years ago.

Adopted from the book by Rabe on his experience in Nanking (today's Nanjing) in 1937, the film will be co-produced by China's leading film company Huayi Bros. and Hofmann & Voges Entertainment from Germany.

With a budget of $20 million, the story will focus on Rabe, an employer of Siemens, who was transferred to the company's Nanjing office in 1931. When his company ordered him to leave in 1937, after Japanese troops invaded the city and killed about 300,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers, he instead stayed behind and helped establish a "Safety Zone" to provide refugees with food, clothing and shelter.

Florian Gallenberger, 35, will direct the film. His first film, I Want To Be, tutored by Wim Wenders, won an Academy Award in 2001. Established cinematographer Jurgen Jurges has also signed on.

Doing it for the kids

Hong Kong singer Gigi Leung has just had an unusual week in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. As the Hong Kong committee for UNICEF (The United Nations Children's Fund) ambassador, Leung talked to local families, shared their stories and promoted the services UNICEF provides to those she visited.

UNICEF works in more than 150 countries and territories to help children survive and thrive from early childhood to adolescence. As the world's largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF also supports child health and nutrition, clean water and sanitation, and basic education for both boys and girls. In Inner Mongolia, UNICEF also trains local doctors and provides medical services. It was the third time Leung has cooperated with UNICEF to visit impoverished areas on the Chinese mainland.

China Daily

(China Daily 10/24/2007 page18)