LIVING CHINA EVERYWHERE
During the summer 2019, we were commissioned by CGTN to produce a video series on the theme «Openness China» for a People’s Daily competition. Our series, Living China Everywhere, featured people representing aspects of the Chinese culture in four different countries: a zumba dancer in France, a dragon boat athlete in the United Kingdom, a martial art fighter in Ethiopia and a publisher and translator in Egypt. The videos mixed live actions interviews and filming with drawing and animation. The series was a real tour de force, as we coordinated filming in 4 different countries and produced 5 videos in mixed-media content in a month.
Our portrait of the Egyptian writer was ranked 9th out of hundreds of videos in the competition, and the videos were also produced in longer version for TV.
In France with Alix Pfrunder
Alix is the founder of Zumba France, a fitness organisation. For the international qipao day, she
was in charge of putting together a choreography for a flashmob that took place in front of theArc de Triomphe in Paris.
In Egypt with Dr Ahmed Saïd
Ahmed is a fluent Chinese speaker, professor, publisher and translator of books from Chinese to Arab. His publishing house, Wisdom House, was the first to translate massively Chinese books for Arab speakers and has more recently published books written by President Xi.
In the UK with Kevin Wong
Kevin is a dragon-boat racer living and training in London. After moving to the UK, he wanted to practice a sport that would help him rediscover his culture, and make new friends. He was instantly hooked, and ended up representing the UK in the European championship.
In Ethiopia with Tofik Shume
Tofik grew up with a fierce passion for Kung-fu films and trained really hard to become one of the first Ethiopian wushu masters. He opened a network of wushu schools, the Jet Li China Wushu Training Center, named after his childhood hero, Jet Li.