Oliver Stone, director of JFK and other films that have
courted controversy for their political content, will shoot a short
film to promote Beijing ahead of the 2008 Olympics, organizers said on Thursday.
The five-minute film would form a "promotional video for
cultural exchange between Beijing and the world" and be shown on
television, in cinemas and on aircraft in China and abroad, the
organizers said in a statement.
"Today, many peoples of the world can live in harmony, and China
plays an important role," Stone told the Beijing News.
"China and the United States are two big countries that should
have more interaction. My goal in shooting this Olympic short film
also lies in this -- the need to build a harmonious international
society."
The 60-year-old Oscar winner is the third director invited to
capture impressions of Beijing as it prepares for the Olympics.
Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore, whose 1989 movie Cinema
Paradiso won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, and
Oscar-nominated Iranian director Majid Majidi will also release
short films, organizers said.
Stone toured Beijing this week to promote World Trade
Center, a movie about the September 11, 2001 attacks in the
US.
Originally set for release last month, World Trade
Center and blockbuster Miami Vice were delayed after
China's culture ministry declared October a month for home-made
films, most of which featured patriotic and revolutionary
themes.
(Agencies via CRI November 3, 2006)
?