Business Wire

Blue Planet Science Fiction Film Festival Highlighted at the 77th Venice Film Festival

8.9.2020 15:33:00 EEST | Business Wire | Press release

Share

China’s Blue Planet Science-Fiction Film Festival was highlighted at the 77th Venice International Film Festival during the “Focus on China” side event earlier this week, bringing a glimpse of the future to the world’s oldest film festival.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200908005606/en/

To view this piece of content from mms.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.

Blue Planet Sci-Fi Film Festival presented at "Focus on China" event during Venice International Film Festival (Photo: Xinhuanet)

The Venice International Film Festival is one of the first major cultural events held in Europe since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The fact that the festival - one of the film industry’s most important annual events - could go ahead offline as planned is a major boost to a sector that has been hit hard by the pandemic. The “Focus on China” event was held in the National Pavilion of Italy and streamed online.

2019 was an international breakthrough year for Chinese sci-fi cinema. November 2019 saw the inaugural Blue Planet Sci-Fi Film Festival, the first of its kind in China. It recorded great success, with 185 sci-fi films from 17 countries screened and a series of activities such as forums, masterclasses and exhibitions held.

The second Blue Planet Sci-Fi Film Festival will be held in November 2020. In light of the difficult times our world is going through, the theme of this year’s festival will be “empathy”. “Amidst this global crisis, it is more important than ever for people around the world to transcend barriers and engage with each other,” said the Blue Planet Organizing Committee in a message to the event.

Industry figures at the Venice Film Festival noted a buzz around the development of Chinese sci-fi. Roberto Stabile, head of international relations for the Italian motion picture association ANICA, said, “I was very impressed by this introduction to the Blue Planet Sci-Fi Film Festival, and look forward to welcoming our friends from the Blue Planet in Venice next year.”

Italian-Chinese filmmaker Shi Yangshi said, “Two years ago, Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore talked to me about Liu Cixin’s sci-fi novels and showed great interest in co-producing sci-fi films with China.” Italian producer Luca Confortini remarked, “China has a well-established film culture and its sci-fi films have been developing rapidly. The Blue Planet is an important and vibrant film event; I believe that China’s sci-fi film market will only grow bigger.”

Six Chinese-directed sci-fi short films chosen from the first Blue Planet were screened during the Film Festival.

To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.

Contact information

Xinhuanet Europe
Wei Wang
info@xinhuaeurope.com

About Business Wire

For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.

Subscribe to releases from Business Wire

Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Latest releases from Business Wire

Telekom Srbija Secures U.S. EXIM Financing to Accelerate 5G Rollout8.5.2026 12:48:00 EEST | Press release

Telekom Srbija Group today announced that the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) has granted final approval for financing to support the continued rollout of Telekom Srbija’s 5G network. The EXIM-supported financing will help fund the deployment of 5G telecommunications network equipment and related services in Serbia, supplied by U.S. technology companies. It marks a major milestone in Telekom Srbija’s long-term investment programme and strengthens the company’s relationship with leading U.S. financial and technology institutions. Telekom Srbija launched commercial 5G services in Serbia in December 2025 and is continuing to expand coverage nationwide. The company is targeting 5G coverage across all Serbian cities by the end of 2026, with full national coverage by the end of 2027. The financing follows EXIM’s preliminary commitment in December 2024 to support the preparation and rollout of Telekom Srbija’s 5G network, and marks a further step in Telekom Srbija’s cooperation

Philip Morris International’s Moira Gilchrist Positions Human Judgment as a Critical Leadership Advantage Amid Rapid AI Adoption at Wall Street Journal Forum8.5.2026 11:00:00 EEST | Press release

Philip Morris International’s (PMI) (NYSE:PM) Chief Global Communications Officer, Moira Gilchrist, joined global thought leaders at The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything conference in New York to examine why human cognition—judgment, context, creativity, and ethical reasoning—is becoming the most valuable asset in an age of artificial intelligence. “The AI boom is putting a premium on distinctly human capabilities,” said Gilchrist, who took part in the session “Cognition: The New Currency – Why Human Judgment Matters More Than Ever.” Speaking to attendees, she emphasized that, “As knowledge is getting democratized, human judgment, intuition, and creativity become the true differentiators that leaders need to nurture across all levels of their organizations.” Philip Morris International is today a different company, built with a singular objective: achieving a smoke-free future. It has evolved its product portfolio, reskilled its workforce, and adopted new ways of working to e

Fortegra Appoints Iwan Röpcke as Chief Executive Officer, Belgium8.5.2026 10:30:00 EEST | Press release

The Fortegra Group, Inc., a global specialty insurer, today announced the appointment of Iwan Röpcke as Chief Executive Officer, Belgium. Mr. Röpcke brings more than 25 years of insurance industry experience to the role, spanning broking, commercial leadership, and executive management across the Benelux and broader European markets. He joins Fortegra from Lloyd’s Insurance Company S.A., where he served as Country Manager for Belgium and the Netherlands, building out the operation from its early stages and overseeing both business strategy and development. Prior to Lloyd's, Mr. Röpcke held senior leadership positions at Willis Towers Watson (via Gras Savoye), where he served as Head of Sales and Head of the Competence Center. His career also includes roles at Inter Partner Assistance (AXA Assistance) as Commercial Director Benelux, Winterthur Europe Assurances, AIG Europe, Aon Belgium, and Marsh. Mr. Röpcke’s industry expertise spans a range of specialty risk areas, with deep relations

KAYTUS Launches All-QLC Flash Storage at AI EXPO 2026 for 10,000-GPU Clusters8.5.2026 10:02:00 EEST | Press release

At AI EXPO KOREA 2026, KAYTUS officially launched its All-QLC Flash Storage Solution, engineered to deliver high performance, massive scalability, and cost efficiency for 10,000-GPU clusters. The solution addresses data-delivery bottlenecks in ultra-large-scale AI training, helping maximize GPU resource utilization. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260508313130/en/ Based on the KR2280 and KR1180 server platforms, the solution is deeply integrated with industry-leading AI-native parallel file systems to eliminate data silos inherent in traditional tiered storage. Purpose-built for read-intensive AI workloads, it overcomes the horizontal scaling limitations of massive clusters. Verified test-data shows that, at exabyte-scale deployment, the solution delivers 10 TB/s aggregate bandwidth and 100 million IOPS. In addition, it reduces five-year TCO by 70% compared with traditional TLC-based solutions, accelerating mo

Beneq Appoints Dr. Jason Harrison as Chief Executive Officer8.5.2026 10:00:00 EEST | Press release

Beneq Oy, the home of atomic layer deposition (ALD), today announced the appointment of Dr. Jason Harrison as Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Harrison succeeds Dr. Tommi Vainio and will lead Beneq into its next phase of growth across semiconductor, optical, and emerging technology markets. A Strategic Leadership Transition Beneq enters its next phase of growth from a position of strong commercial momentum. Recent milestones include the qualification of the Beneq Transform® cluster tool for volume production of GaN power and RF filter devices; the introduction of Beneq Transmute™ and Beneq Transform® XP, both engineered for high-volume manufacturing (HVM) of specialty semiconductors; growing adoption of the P-Series for coating critical chamber parts in advanced node devices; and selection of the C2R™ for AR waveguide production in next-generation XR optics. Against this backdrop, the Board of Directors has determined that the time is right to align executive leadership with the company's

In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.

Visit our pressroom
World GlobeA line styled icon from Orion Icon Library.HiddenA line styled icon from Orion Icon Library.Eye