BRI could unlock Asia's film distribution potential: 'Antara' producer

Amartei also noted that the Chinese people "were always very good at manufacturing and infrastructure" and that "it's just in the blood, in the DNA".

After watching award-winning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and the setting of the movie being in Wudang Mountain, he was mesmerized, including with the movie's production "with all the elegance and sophistication" from production to the scoring and collaboration. As a young man, he travelled down to Wudang Mountain for his fantastic spiritual enlightenment.

He said it "was a complete gamechanger from the Raymond Chow era", referring to the late Hong Kong film legend, and "from the Jackie Chan era", like kung fu movies in Hong Kong.

"So again, a testament to the power of film. It made China my first cultural romance," said Amartei.

"So I think the Belt and Road Initiative gives people the chance to do what they're good at. Be it in engineering, be it technology, be it the movies. They could have huge new movie champions, like Uzbekistan, for example, you'll never know," said Amartei.

Amartei was hopeful that the BRI could help accelerate film distribution, sharing his friend's experience with owning a delivery company that made four times more money in Kuwait than it did in Egypt even though the latter was bigger in terms of population size.

"What does that say to you? It says that you'll never know. It's not just about the number of people there, of how well a movie might be distributed,"

He said as an example that one may have fewer people in Kazakhstan than they do in Uzbekistan, but "you might make more in distribution for whatever reasons".

"So the Belt and Road Initiative allows us to unlock this potential with all these different countries," said Amartei.

"International cinema is going to take over Hollywood. I think bringing the world together, especially Asians and the Middle East, because inevitably, the West is going to be part of that, to whatever degree because they're also participant in the main region," said Amartei.

"There's a lot of people leaving Europe completely to make a new home in Abu Dhabi or Dubai. Or Saudi. Same with America," he added.