Two grand events, namely the 2023 Qingdao Digital Culture Application Development Expo and the 2013 Qingdao Film and TV Week, held in Qingdao from April 6 to 9, reaped fruitful results.

As China’s first comprehensive event dedicated to digital culture, the 2023 Qingdao Digital Culture Application Development Expo, with the theme of “new application, new experience, new consumption”, attracted the participation of more than 500 companies and institutions from over 40 regions. The expo comprised exhibition, online platforms, forums and symposiums, release of new products and introduction of industry standards, and project roadshows. More than 200 industry leaders including China Animation Comic Game Group, Tencent, Himalaya, Inspur, Hisense and Alibaba have comprehensively showcased China’s leading-edge novel modes of cultural industry, application scenarios and products including digital creativity, digital recreation and digital art. In the period, the nationwide digital culture integration service platform put up by Qingdao was officially put into operation, 26 key projects of digital culture signed agreements, and 7 standards on national cultural big data systems were promulgated.

Themed on "new technology, new vision and the new film metropolis", the 2023 Qingdao Film and TV Week attracted the participation of more than 800 industry practitioners and around 500 film enterprise, consisted of five modules and held 19 activities focusing on the industrialization of China’s film and TV sector, aimed at fostering a favorable film and TV ecology, extending the industrial chain and polishing the “film city” image in all respects. In the week, 11 key film and TV projects signed agreements, as much as RMB23.131mln of subsidies have been granted to qualified film and TV enterprises, and the Shandong provincial 5G new high-definition video innovation and entrepreneurship community held a signing ceremony. The enterprises and institution present in the week co-launched the Qingdao Initiative, intended to boost communication and cooperation between worldwide “film cities” and embrace together the opportunities of the times.

Qingdao, long tied to film and TV industry, is among the “film cities” granted by the UNESCO and the first Chinese city to obtain the title. In 2021, Qingdao’s trademark of “Film Journey” was officially approved by the China National Intellectual Property Administration and became China’s first registered brand on film and TV industry. Since put into operation in 2018, the Qingdao Oriental Movie Metropolis has seen continuous iterations and upgrades, and emerged as a film and TV base across the film and TV production industrial chain in line with international standards. The Wandering Earth, a blockbuster produced in the Oriental Movie Metropolis created a box office miracle in the history of Chinese sci-fi films, chalked up a record level of Chinese sci-fi film production and made Chinese national film industry rise to fame. (Wang Kai)

1、The opening ceremony of the 2023 Qingdao Digital Culture Application Development Expo. By Xing Zhifeng

2. A slew of film and TV culture projects signed agreements in the 2023 Qingdao Film and TV Week. By Xing Zhifeng