Renowned director and producer Li Shaohong called on film practitioners to focus more on women's perspectives at Friday's masterclass held at the fourth Hainan Island International Film Festival in the resort city of Sanya in south China's Hainan Province.

Li is considered a member of the Fifth Generation of Chinese cinema-tography, and the country's top female director. Her films have won multiple international awards, including the Silver Bear at the 1995 Berlin International Film Festival.

Known for her works from female perspectives, Li shared her own experiences and reflected on the women in her films to ignite the passion of practitioners during the masterclass on Friday.

"Female themes may mean that you use stories of female characters, but the female perspective still has to be related to the gender of the creator. Our generation had a process of awakening. We gradually discovered that there are differences between genders in creating projects, but I found that young directors don't like to mention women's perspectives. They care more about their personal perspectives. Sometimes becoming a director is indeed a relatively difficult profession for women, but I'm not so worried that there will be fewer female directors, because women's willingness to express is getting stronger and stronger," said Li.

The week-long fourth Hainan Island International Film Festival is jointly hosted by the China Media Group and the Hainan provincial government. This year's festival will last till Dec. 25.

The event has selected nearly 30 films from 26 countries for this year's competition in the categories of features, documentaries and shorts.

In addition to the masterclasses,industry forums and public screenings are also being held during the event.

The Hainan Island International Film Festival was first held in 2018.