China, Ghana to co-produce film on China's anti-Ebola aid

World
Europe

China and Ghana will co-produce a feature film titled "Ebola," commemorating Chinese medical aid to West Africa during the Ebola epidemic in 2014.

It is the first cooperation between the two countries' film industries, and the first feature film co-produced by China and any African country.

At a signing ceremony of the film project held in Beijing earlier this week, Shen Jian, a producer from the Chinese side, said the Chinese anti-Ebola medical workers, who worked alongside their African counterparts, have "composed a grand chapter of a community with a shared future between China and Africa."

Ghana used to be home to the headquarters of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response which coordinated the global response to the outbreak of the deadly disease, and the Ghanaian film industry witnessed how Chinese medical teams provided humanitarian relief to Ebola-hit countries, said Ghanaian producer Albert Mensah.

The signing ceremony of the film project was held in Beijing on August 29, 2018. /Photo via people.com

He said cooperation in the movie industry is expected to contribute to a stronger Africa-China relationship through the "power of images."

"I'm hoping that beyond Ebola there are a lot of the stories (between China and Africa) that we can tell," said Edward Boateng, Ghanaian ambassador to China.

It took more than a year for the production team to make the necessary preparations. They interviewed dozens of Chinese medical workers who were dispatched to Africa as well as Ebola survivors who received successful medical treatment and fully recovered.

According to the producer-in-chief Wang Xiaoyan, the film will be shot in Africa next year and the production is scheduled to be finished in 2020, in time to mark the 20th anniversary of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.

China has sent more than 1,200 medical personnel and public health specialists to areas affected by Ebola since the epidemic outbreak.

(With input from Xinhua)