Multimedia platforms are taking center stage at Asia's leading entertainment industry gathering, the Hong Kong Entertainment Expo. The four week event, held at several venues across Hong Kong, runs until April 15th.
The Hong Kong Entertainment Expo features nine multimedia events, covering film, television, music and digital entertainment.
It includes the 16th edition of the Hong Kong International Film and Television Market, known as FILMART.
FILMART 2012 welcomes over 640 exhibitors from more than 30 countries and regions. Around 5,200 buyers from across the world expected to take in the event. It's Asia's major entertainment industry market, and one of the top three events of its kind in the world. FILMART continues through Thursday.
China Central Television's Documentary Channel, CCTV-9 is seeing the event as an opportunity to promote itself to the international market.
CCTV-9 announced its 2012 plans during a press conference at FILMART.
The plan includes some joint programs with world renowned TV corporations, such as the BBC, National Geographic, and France's Kwanza Company.
Liu Wen, the supervisor of CCTV Documentary, said, "Working with international producers will improve our team's creative ability, and push the internationalization and marketization of the channel."
Meanwhile, the 36th Hong Kong International Film Festival opened on Wednesday, as part of the Expo. Celebrities, including festival ambassador Miriam Yeung and Mini Yang were at the opening ceremony. Among the films to be screened, 53 are world, international or Asian premiers.
Roger Garcia, the executive dir. of HK Int'l Film Festival Society, said, "We've shown international films, and Asian films, and also Chinese language films for many years. We are just discoverers for Chinese language cinema, we have to promote Chinese language cinema and Hong Kong cinema to the world, and we also have to discover many new Asia film works."
The film festival runs for 16 days from Wednesday to April 5th, and will screen about 300 films from 50 countries. Festival organizers say they're committed to raising appreciation of global film culture among audiences.