A 10-day Italian film exhibition concluded on Sunday in Shanghai, with six films by emerging Italian directors receiving warm reception from Chinese audiences.
The exhibition, "Italian cinema: emerging directors," opened on March 7. Six Italian movies were screened at the event, including Italy's highest-grossing film of 2023, "There's still tomorrow," and the Berlin International Film Festival entrant "Gloria!"
The screening of these high-quality films sparked lively discussions between Italian filmmakers and viewers.
"I'm very excited because I really felt that they got the movie in a very deep way. The Chinese audience was very excited; they all wanted to make questions. More than one question was about my real, deep motivation: 'Why did you do this movie?' And it's not like a common question, but I think they understood because they understood the movie," said Margherita Vicario, director of the film "Gloria!"
The film campaign, co-hosted by the Italian Consulate General in Shanghai and the Italian Trade Agency, also featured roundtable discussions between Italian and Chinese filmmakers.
"This is a very precise selection of films from emerging directors. We are showing five first films and one second film. The whole idea was that they really brought new life into Italian cinema, and I firmly believe that Chinese young film makers are doing the same with Chinese cinema," said Marco Mueller, curator of the film exhibition.
"I'm very happy that we celebrated at the beginning of 2025. which is the 55th anniversary of our bilateral relations. As usual, art is the most important channel of communication among our people. Many cultural events are going on -- from the museum cooperation to films, to ballet, to opera," said Tiziana D'Angelo, consul general of Italy in Shanghai.
China and Italy are seeing closer ties in the cultural sector. Under a memorandum of cooperation signed last November between the two countries, an event showcasing Chinese cinema will be held in Italy in September this year.
Italian film exhibition receives warm reception from Shanghai audience
A Chinese research institution approved by the central government has been working on creating a platform that integrates all of China's computing resources and artificial intelligence prowess to enable shared access for everyone, according to the institution's founder, who said it should be made as "easy as using electricity."
It comes as China's tech sector is experiencing an unprecedented period of growth, with the country's AI industry having been energized by the emergence of a new cost-effective model released by Chinese start-up DeepSeek, which has gained significant international attention since its release early this year.
The launch of the DeepSeek-R1 large language model back in January caused a global sensation with its performance hailed for rivaling that of other top international models, despite its development cost being only one-thirtieth of that of similar products.
The Peng Cheng Laboratory, a research institution headquartered in the southern Chinese tech hub of Shenzhen, has made the DeepSeek series of models available in the open-source community for domestic developers to test and validate.
Gao Wen, the institute's founding director who is also an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering, shared his insights on the impact of DeepSeek on developers. He particularly pointed to the openness of the program which allows broad access for all users, rather than a select few tech giants dominating the market.
"I believe the emergence of DeepSeek will accelerate advancements in this entire field by many years. Previously, large models like ChatGPT, LLaMA [by Meta], and those from Google or Facebook required substantial resources from leading enterprises, including sufficient computing power, talent, and data for their development and application. Currently, AI applications abroad are primarily in the hands of a few major companies like Microsoft and Google. However, DeepSeek changes this dynamic by democratizing access; it's no longer limited to a select few top enterprises or players—now all startups can engage with it. This significantly broadens the possibilities, which is its greatest contribution," said Gao in an interview with China Central Television (CCTV).
The introduction of DeepSeek has triggered a series of chain reactions in various sectors, while the lowering of application barriers has stimulated increased demand for advanced computing power across society.
Gao said that AI acts as the 'fuel' driving the progress of computing power, which in turn will help AI to develop to its full potential. He noted that the laboratory will need to accelerate its plans to cope with the increased demand for computing resources.
"We did not initially anticipate such rapid growth in demand, but now we need to adjust quickly. Much of our work must be expedited," he said.
One of the Peng Cheng Laboratory's main tasks is to lead the research and construction of the "China Computing Network (C2NET)" in line with major national strategies, such as the East-to-West Computing Capacity Diversion Project and the Digital China initiative, which Gao said aims to ensure ease of access to all.
"Our goal is to allow users to access computing power as easily as they use electricity. If they need it, they can purchase it, and they can buy the cheapest computing power available," said Gao.
He explained that the purpose of constructing C2NET is to both better integrate and ensure computing resources are more fairly distributed across the country, including supercomputing centers, data centers, and cloud computing platforms.
The integration program aims to create a unified pool of computing resources, establishing a digital economy infrastructure that facilitates easy access to resources, unified task scheduling, and a sustainable operational model. This will advance autonomous computing resources across the country into an era of "shared access for all," he said.
"C2NET aims to follow a similar path. We are building a national superhighway for computing power using new technologies while also hoping to introduce new management models—departing from conventional communication management styles. We are currently collaborating with the National Data Administration (NDA) to develop a new model based on data association," said Gao.
He stated that his team hopes to enhance the utilization efficiency of all invested resources through C2NET, drawing parallels to the initial concept behind the country's power grid.
"We are quite confident in our technologies. By progressing step by step, we believe we can achieve significant advancements. Naturally, we aspire to obtain the best resources, including the finest craftsmanship, the most advanced software, and the fastest, highest-quality machines available globally," he continued.
Chinese institution aims to change tech landscape by provide supercomputing access to all
