Moviegoers express great anticipation for upcoming Shanghai International Film Festival

Movie fans have voiced high expectation for the 28th Shanghai International Film Festival, which will run from June 12 to 21 and stage over 400 selected movies.

This year's film festival will span 47 cinemas across Shanghai and five cities in the Yangtze River Delta, staging over 420 films in more than 1,500 screenings.

A total of 250,000 tickets were sold online just 15 minutes after sales began, with three hottest sections covering 4K restoration, global award-winning films, and Asian masterpieces.

"I've been watching for 20 years. To truly enjoy a film, you should watch it at a film festival," said movie fan Xia Zuxiang.

"I planned to buy around 20 sessions and I've managed to get them all," said Wang Chenwei, another festival attendee.

In addition to popular screening sections, this year's event has also specially arranged a domestic film section, which features 15 classic and emerging Chinese films that showcase China's geographical features and cultural diversity.

"This year, we have specially planned a film festival section called 'Grand Landscape: A Cinematic Portrait of China', which is divided into three sections to showcase aspirations for, feelings for and beauty of our landscape. The section will use 15 diverse domestic films to celebrate the 105th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China," said Chen Guo, managing director of Shanghai International Film and TV Events Center.

This year's film festival will also stage a special exhibition showcasing more than 500 precious artifacts to display the development of the Shanghai International Film Festival and the Shanghai TV Festival over the past decades.

In addition, cultural and creative pop-up stores have geared up for partnerships with the festival and are expected to launch nearly 60 related products during the event.

Moviegoers express great anticipation for upcoming Shanghai International Film Festival

The newly-established World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization (WAICO) marks a major milestone in AI development and a significant step toward global AI governance, international delegates said on Friday.

Twenty-nine countries on Thursday signed an agreement in Shanghai on establishing WAICO, an independent intergovernmental international organization headquartered in Shanghai.

The organization aims to promote international cooperation and global governance on AI, ensuring that AI is beneficial, safe and fair, thereby promoting its healthy and orderly development to benefit all humanity.

"I think this organization reinforces the need for multilateral cooperation. So you have 29 countries that have come together. I think yesterday's developments underline the importance of the capacity-building that countries around the world are facing an AI divide. There are some countries that do not have the talent, the datasets, the computer infrastructure, the access to the right models, and therefore efforts such as these can help bridge the AI divide," said UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Envoy for Digital and Emerging Technologies Amandeep Singh Gill.

Alaa Abdulaal, chief of Digital Economy Intelligence at the Digital Cooperation Organization, also hailed the launch, saying that cooperation is vital to ensure that no country is structurally excluded from the evolving digital landscape.

"Any initiative that is targeted for opening dialogues and innovation and conversation between countries to make sure that everyone is participating in the digital economy is a huge milestone. Whenever we have cooperation, whenever we have different countries, different representation, making sure that no one is left outside AI, it is a huge achievement, definitely," said Abdulaal.

World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization marks milestone in AI development: int'l delegates