On April 13 in Beijing, UniFrance presented the French Cinema Award to La Peikang, chairman of China Film Corporation.
Following awards presented to the producers of The Little Prince Aton Soumache and Dimitri Rassam, the Italian distributor Andrea Occhipinti, the actress Isabelle Huppert, and the German distributor Torsten Frehse, UniFrance has once again honored an outstanding figure in the international movie industry who has contributed to raising the profile of French cinema around the world.
La Peikang, chairman of China Film Corp, was presented with the French Cinema Award on Thursday, April 13, in the presence of Dany Boon, who was in China to introduce R.A.I.D. Special Unit at the Beijing International Film Festival, as well as Frédérique Bredin, president of the CNC, and Jean-Paul Salomé, president of UniFrance.
With China Film Corp, Mr. La produced Wolf Totem by Jean-Jacques Annaud, the most successful Franco-Chinese co-production to date. He was also instrumental in the signing of the Co-Production Agreement between France and China in April 2010. In addition to this, China Film Corp benefits from a monopoly on the import of foreign films in China and is one of only two companies authorized to distribute these films. Indeed it is largely to La Peikang that we owe the release of the majority of French films in this market.
La Peikang was born in 1959 in Shanghai. He graduated from the Beijing University of Foreign Languages, studied as an auditor at the Beijing Film Institute and the Sorbonne University in Paris before starting his career at China Film in 1983. Appointed representative of China Film's Paris office in 1986 and again in 1994, he took the role of executive president of China Film Import Export in 1999, then as general director of China Film Co-Production Corporation and vice-president of China Film Group. From 2008 until late 2013, he served as assistant general director of the Film Office. He became CEO of China Film Co. Ltd in 2014.
The French Cinema Award trophies are created by the legendary Saint-Louis Crystal Manufacturing House, which was founded in 1586.
