Tennis competition staged alongside Beijing Int'l Film Festival

The ongoing 16th Beijing International Film Festival (BJIFF) saw actors and directors trading scripts for tennis rackets at the first-ever Film Figures Tennis Invitational, bringing the worlds of cinema and sports together.

The National Tennis Center is the city's largest tennis facility, with 43 courts and year-round events including the famous China Open.

But during the festival, red carpets lead to the courts where round-robin matches, accompanied by lots of laughs, are pitting the movie A-listers against each other.

Young Chinese actor Wu Hankun shared his insights on the similarities between playing tennis and acting.

"An actor, you might not get your breakthrough role for many years, and the same thing is true for tennis, which is that when you practice a shot or a stroke, you might not really perfect it until you get like the 10,000th stroke. And I think also there's a lot of creativity that gets spilled out when you play tennis and also in acting as well. It really makes you humble to know that you will never really perfect any single stroke because everything is new. So it forces you to keep on your toes, and you'll have to keep improving -- and that's the same thing as it is in acting," he said.

Meanwhile, Wang Ningtong, a veteran Chinese documentary filmmaker, welcomed the "joint spirit" at the event between the sports and movie industries.

"Once on the court, actually you have to digest a lot of information and then generate very very quickly the reaction. I mean tennis is something that you can't play alone -- it's a kind of sharing event, like this, this is the first time [combining] film and sport, the joint spirit," Wang said.

This invitational is part of a broader strategy to position Beijing as a global destination for integrated cultural and sports tourism.

Running from April 16 to 25, this year's BJIFF offers a rich lineup of events to entertain large crowds of visitors looking for an immersive journey into the world of cinema.

Launched in 2011, the festival aims to boost exchange among global industry players. It has been attracting increasing international attention thanks to China's booming film market.

Tennis competition staged alongside Beijing Int'l Film Festival

The Chinese Embassy in the United States hosted a celebration on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. to mark the 2026 United Nations Chinese Language Day, which fell on Monday.

The event attracted about 500 attendees, including teenagers interested in Chinese culture and friends from all walks of life.

Speaking at the event, Minister Qiu Wenxing of the Chinese Embassy in the United States said that Chinese is one of the fastest-growing foreign languages among college students in the U.S., with nearly 400 primary and secondary schools in 31 states offering Chinese courses and more and more American friends joining the ranks of Chinese learners.

He noted that the essence of the Chinese language lies in harmonious coexistence. At present, China-U.S. relations are facing challenges, which calls for even greater need to draw wisdom from the way of harmony and cooperation.

At the event, a touring troupe composed of teachers and students from four universities in central China's Henan Province presented performances such as folk music, martial arts, and Henan opera.

Chinese Language Day, established by the United Nations in 2010, is celebrated annually on Guyu, or Grain Rain, the sixth of the 24 traditional Chinese solar terms, to highlight the global significance of the language.

UN Chinese Language Day celebrated in Washington D.C.