The director told Xinhua he was particularly hit by the "spectacular nature" and capacity of Chinese cinema to give films the "expressiveness" they need.

"Chinese directors manage to be spectacular when they tell spectacular stories and manage to be minimalist when they tell minimalist stories. That is to say that they manage to do films in the way films need to be, differently from less rich cinema industries where you feel that films are somehow forced to be a little different from their nature," he underlined.

He also noted that Chinese films are very much linked to their home country's culture. "Even when they are fantasy films, you can feel there are always the roots of Chinese history and culture below them, which is a very important characteristic of Chinese cinema that makes it very recognizable, very personal," he explained.

In fact, in his view, it is natural that every cinema expresses the culture of its own country but "of course there are also universal themes that manage to go beyond borders of a certain market or a certain country, which is the beauty of cinema."

"For example, how many Italian films have been around the world,

in the same way as Chinese, American and French films? This is the great beauty of cinema," he pointed out.

For this reason, Tornatore was convinced that there will be increasing collaboration occasions on stories that can be interesting for the Italian and Chinese market, but also for other international markets. "There are all the conditions to make it," he highlighted.

Established in 2014, the China Film Forum aims to help insiders of the European film industry better understand the Chinese market,

and brought together directors, producers, investors, film critics and journalists for discussions under the theme "Reasons of Creativity."

A major topic at this year's forum was "how to create stories for other cultures." To explore on it, participants watched the trailer of Forgotten War, an upcoming war-themed film brought to the forum by young Chinese producer Han Yi and director Zhang Duanyang, with the goal to demonstrate a historical period of China in a way that Western audience can connect with.

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