China and Ireland hope to boost movie industry collaboration

Two Irish films, Song of the Sea and Once, were also shown and will be screened again in China in 2020, during the Chinese leg of the festival.

Seminars and discussions on Sino-Irish co-production were held, with an emphasis on Ireland as a potential film location and on opportunities for Irish films to enter the Chinese market as the country relaxes its quota on foreign films.

China's Changchun Film Studio Group, from Jilin province, which is said to be the oldest cornerstone of the Chinese film industry, presented five movies at the festival, including Jackie Chan's 1911 Revolution, The Assassins, which stars Chow Yun-fat, and Yang Yazhou's The Sun, as well as two films by Lei Xianhe, Cableway Doctor and The Woman Behind the Man.

The China Ireland International Film Festival was organized by University College Dublin Confucius Institute for Ireland and the festival's organizing committee and was supported by China's embassy in Ireland and Screen Ireland.

An exhibition of Chinese handcrafted film posters was also held at the UCD Confucius Institute for Ireland to accompany the festival, which opened on Monday and which will end on Saturday.