‍The 5th Silk Road International Film Festival is underway in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, where the ancient Silk Road began.

As part of the film forum, "Master Carnival – Blue Project" was held on Oct. 12.

The event allowed domestic and foreign filmmakers and well-known directors to conduct public classes, lectures and one-on-one exchanges with audiences.

The guests included Rob Cohen, Peggy Chiao and Lu Wei, among others. They delivered lectures on film creation and film development at home and abroad.

Rob Cohen – an American film director, producer and screenwriter – is the creator of the Fast and the Furious franchise. 

Based on his experiences shooting commercial films in Hollywood, Cohen communicated with young directors and audiences about the specifics of plot design, action design, scene scheduling, coordination of actors and other related matters, and shared the shooting methods and working procedures of Hollywood. 

Cohen told CGTN that young Chinese filmmakers need to be brave, but afraid at the same time. They need to find their own style and their own subject matter to distinguish themselves from the crowd. 

When talking about the big disparity in the reception of different movie genres in China, Cohen suggested the huge success of "Wolf Warrior 2" was because Wu Jing gave Chinese audiences a reason to cheer. It struck a nerve, he said, and "the nerve is so big that no one film in history has done it that well."

Cohen also suggested that the problems faced by virtually unknown movie genres were because “either they don't hit the nerve or they haven't been presented in a wide enough way that people can start talking about them.” 

Cohen also talked about the satisfaction of creating a work that will transcend those who make it. 

“One of the great things about directing is that you know your movie is going to be shown long after you are not on the planet, so you have a little bit more vitality through creating a film that connects to people.”

(Video: Huang Chenchen)