Fang  Jie and Zhe Tianyuan

The Indian subcontinent is one of the major important regions for international film and television prodution, which not only gains a large number of audiences worldwide, but also brings huge economic benefits to South Asian countries. China and South Asian countries are not two sides of the zero-sum game, but partners of mutual benefit. It is an important goal of Yunnan to build Kunming into an international film and television cultural exchange center between China and South Asian countries, which also provides new opportunities for cooperation between China and South Asian countries and is an important way to enhance mutual benefit and win-win cooperation between China and South Asian countries.

The Indian subcontinent is a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-cultural region, and its profound cultural heritage nurtures and creates a large number of beautiful music and exquisite dances. Film and television works in South Asian countries usually incorporate music and dance elements, which make them more interesting and enjoyable, thus attracting the attention of the audience. Nowadays, more and more countries and regions are learning from the experience of South Asian countries in film and television creation, so as to promote the rapid development of their film and television industry. China is a populous country with a large number of film and television audiences, and in a sense learning from the experience and industrial development system of South Asian countries in film and television creation will contribute to the development of China's film and television industry.

From China's point of view, there are still many difficulties in accelerating the cooperation between China and South Asian countries in the film and television industry. Firstly, China and South Asian countries have different cultural backgrounds, and there is still a certain strangeness of culture between two sides. Although the cooperation between China and South Asian countries has been deepened after years of exchanges and cooperation, the cooperation between China and South Asian countries is still far from enough, and mostly limited to the field of economic cooperation. Therefore, it is necessary to gradually embrace each other's culture and understand each other's ideas through film and television cultural cooperation. Secondly, most of the films in South Asian countries use local languages, and it is difficult to translate and understand the diverse cultural backgrounds of South Asian countries. China needs to train more talents who are not only proficient in the languages of South Asian countries, but also have a good knowledge of South Asian culture, so as to help us to have a deeper understanding of the cultural background of South Asian countries. At the same time, China should also bring in talents from South Asian countries and increase exchanges between China and South Asian countries in order to help eliminate misunderstandings and enhance friendship between the two sides. Last but not least, there are still few film and television works co-produced by China and South Asian countries, so it is necessary to further expand the film and television works and scale of co-production. In recent years, China and India have jointly launched films such as Kung Fu Yoga and Make a Big Trouble with Tianzhu, which have achieved good results.Yunnan Satellite TV has produced a large-scale human geography documentary. The Story of Surrounding Countries has well publicized South Asian countries. The creation of Yunnan film and television dramas can involve more transnational and cross-cultural contents, which can attract the film and television productions from South Asian countries to make movies in Yunnan. At the same time, it can also carry out joint shooting and production in the form of micro-movies, documentaries and mobile cinemas, so that more Chinese audiences can enjoy the film and television works from South Asian countries, and meanwhile, Chinese film and television works can spread to South Asian countries. Due to the impact of the current COVID-19 epidemic, it is still difficult for China and South Asian countries to co-produce film and television works, but both sides can gradually promote their cooperation by translating each other's film and television works.

The COVID-19 epidemic has affected the communication between China and South Asian countries, but it cannot affect the heart-to-heart communication between the Chinese people and the people of South Asian countries. The cooperation between China and South Asian countries in film and television industry will help both sides open their hearts and find common words. Yunnan, as a neighboring province of China and South Asian countries, has always had close contacts with South Asian countries. Therefore, it is an important way to deepen the friendship between China and South Asian countries to build Kunming into an international film and television cultural communication center between China and South Asian countries.

(Fang Jie is a scholar at Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences and Zhe Tianyuan is a scholar at Yunnan University)