From November 6 to 10, the 9th Ya’an Panda&Nature Film Week is being held in Ya’an, Southwest China's Sichuan Province. The event focuses around the theme of “Movies energize pandas’ hometown · Light shines on glorious Ya’an.” The biggest feature of this year’s movie week is to advocate caring for animals, protecting nature and consideration for tour shared environment, inviting everyone to Ya’an to enjoy the beauty of the harmonious coexistence between men and nature. 

The movie week’s opening and a closing ceremony showcase the achievements of Ya’an’s “movies and televisions + culture and tourism.” The event includes seven main activities, including an exhibition of shooting resources of Ya’an’s movies and televisions, an online press conference from the Louvre, the exhibition of children’s paintings titled “Pandas go out into the world from Ya’an,” a film sharing event and a director meeting, as well as two special supporting activities: celebrity posters activity and the new national panda art exhibition. The movie week will also connect Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, and Beijing to carry out a series of events.

The movie week also launched a movie collection for the whole world, which includes 1,735 movies from 109 countries and regions involving the topics of animal protection, the natural environment, rainforest ecology and caring for special groups, and which screened out 104 movies. More than 40 high quality movies will be shown to the public during the week-long event.

“Good ecology is Ya’an’s greatest treasure, advantage and brand, and such green resources are the best choice for the movie week to collect ideas, communicate and ground,” according to Zhang Lei, deputy director of the China Film Art Research Center and China Film Archive, in response to the question as to why the event is being held in Ya’an. 
“Ya’an’s ‘temperament’ is quite consistent with the main idea of green, low-carbon and environmental protection advocated by the movie week,” he explained.

Ya’an is known as the “gene bank of animals and plants,” and its forest coverage ranks first in Sichuan. In addition, Ya’an is also the world’s first scientific discovery place, naming place and type specimen origin of the giant pandas, and has the largest research base of giant panda breeding in China. 

“Holding an animal and nature movie week with pandas as the main theme in their birthplace can provide moviemakers from all over the world with shooting opportunities and convenient conditions for wildlife and nature movies” Zhang pointed out. 

According to Zhou Wanping, director of the Ya’an culture, sports and tourism bureau, the film week will showcase the new model and new scene of Ya’an’s green and innovative development, fully illustrating the new path and new achievements of Ya’an in building a city with strong culture and tourism, and create a role model for the construction of an important culture and tourism destination of pandas in the world.

The movie week will also strengthen exchanges and cooperation with countries including Canada, the US, and France to speed up the process of building a global movie and television base in Ya’an, attract domestic and foreign photographers, and let the world know Ya’an again.