"Film is a product of technological advancement and a fusion of technology and art, embodying both industrial and cultural attributes," said Jin Haiyang, president of the Digital Film Production Working Committee of the China Film Association, at the opening ceremony on Wednesday night.

He noted the AI-generated content technology in recent years has made breakthrough progress and has been rapidly applied in various aspects of film creation, production, management and analysis. "By leveraging the AI and integrating digital equipment, technology and assets, as well as data information, we can significantly enhance the competitiveness of digital clusters and promote a revolutionary upgrade to the film industry system."

At the opening ceremony, the First Film Gold Digital Honor — created to promote the close integration of advanced film technologies and AI — was announced. A total of 23 enterprises or projects, including Huawei Cloud's MetaStudio and the virtual filming project of the movie Born to Fly, received accolades for Annual Outstanding Independent Technology R&D, Technical Innovation Application and Visual Effects of the year.

Chongqing's Yongchuan district is striving to build a city for sci-tech films in western China. In May last year, China's largest single digital technology studio that utilizes virtual shooting technology in the entire filming process — Yongchuan Technology Studio — was officially put to use during the First China Film Technology Innovation Summit held in Yongchuan.

In addition, multiple events including themed salons, a film innovation exhibition, a virtual idol concert, a virtual production competition for national college students and sci-tech film screenings will be held during the film week.