Filmmakers look to open minds

A relationship formed during the Cold War, when there was little communication between East and West

Two Hollywood filmmakers hope their work serves to educate Western audiences about China, to offset the often negative portrayal of the country in mass media.

The documentary film, Yibin - Golden Gate of the Yangtze River, was screened on Saturday at Mount Saint Mary's University, hosted by the Los Angeles-Guangzhou Sister City Association.

It is part of the documentary series Mysterious China, directed by Chris D. Nebe, who wants to connect the Western world with China by telling Chinese stories through a Hollywood lens.

"The response to our film is very positive, because you see, Americans are not all negatively inclined toward China, so they are looking for this kind of information, which paints a different picture than what is the image of China," said Nebe, the president of Monarex Hollywood.

J.J. Osbun, vice-president of the company, said the image that many people in the West have of China is one that is threatening. It comes from fear, and it is enabled by news outlets and politicians leveraging it for attention.

"Aspects of this country created an enemy to further its own causes, because if you can't rally people around the cause, they are not going to pay attention to what you are doing, and at the end of the day, China is, they are at the moment, that entity, because they are big, and it is a foreign culture, and it's what you don't know," he said.

"Our films aim very much to personalize China and share that culture, and give people an idea that these are human beings as well, and you shouldn't think of them as the 'other' so easily," he added.

That understanding is facilitated by people-to-people exchange between citizens, which Jeffrey Cheung, the co-president of the Los Angeles-Guangzhou Sister City Association (LAGSCA), said is the basis of his organization.

The LAGSCA, founded in 1981, is part of Sister Cities International, created by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956 to encourage friendship and cultural exchange between US cities, counties and states with communities around the world after World War II.

"The sister cities initiative was formed during the Cold War period; at the time, there was a lack of communication between the East and the West," Cheung said.

Guangzhou and Los Angeles became sister cities on Dec 6, 1981. The LAGSCA, formed in 1981, is one of the earlier China-US sister city organizations of its kind, Cheung said.

Over the years, it has welcomed numerous delegations from Guangzhou and other cities of China to Los Angeles. Its members also have accompanied Los Angeles delegations during visits to China.

It has assisted Los Angeles-area economic and trade delegations interested in export-import, manufacturing, service industries and investments, in visiting Guangzhou and other parts of China at least once a year.

An economic alliance, formed in 2014 among Los Angeles, Guangzhou and Auckland, New Zealand — all sister cities to each other — created the world's first tri-city agreement. It enhanced trade and investment and opened up opportunities for new markets between the cities.

More than 600 government officials, businesspeople and scholars gathered at Guangzhou for the 2017 Tripartite Economic Summit.

Since its establishment in 2014, the alliance between the three cities has generated 22 agreements in fields including biopharma, cross-border e-commerce, planning and designing, film and television production, as well as ports and logistics, China Daily reported in 2017.

Around 360 businesses, investors and civic leaders from the three cities attended the 2019 Tripartite Economic Summit, which was held in May in Auckland, Xinhua reported.

Steve Temkin, vice-president at LAGSCA, said, "It's very important that the people-to-people relationship continues to be strong."