In Wuxi, Chinese cinema is stepping fully into the digital age. Technology is also helping to promote Chinese culture and lifestyle to the world.
The Chinese Hollywood: the stage is set and the ambitions are clear. Located in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, in southern China, the digital film industrial park aims to become the nerve center of modern Chinese cinema, and it has the resources to back it up.
Founded in 2012 on the site of a former steel mill, the park spans 130 hectares. At the entrance, nothing suggests that a large part of current Chinese cinema is being produced behind these buildings. Then the doors open and the sets follow one another. Cameras, lighting, and, above all, digital equipment occupy the space. The complex includes fifteen filming studios as well as three digital studios dedicated to virtual production and animation. Most have been set up in the former steel mill hangars. Also known as Wuxi Studios, the site specializes in post-production, virtual production, and special effects.
More than 800 Chinese and foreign companies in the film and cultural sectors are now gathered within this audiovisual ecosystem. Blockbusters such as ‘The Captain’ and ‘The Wandering Earth II’ were filmed and developed there.
One of the main assets of Wuxi Studios lies in its digital stage equipped with 5G technology. The traditional green screen is no longer necessary. Facing the cameras are huge LED screens on which a street, a mountain, a futuristic city, or a historical landscape can appear. Actors thus move in a virtual setting generated in real-time.
A visit to Wuxi Studios feels like a journey between several worlds. From historical or prehistoric sets to virtual universes, the only limits seem to be the director’s creativity and imagination. According to Li, who guided the tour, Wuxi has specifically chosen to place this technology at the heart of its strategy. The city notably hosted the first joint laboratory dedicated to intelligent virtual filming based on a 5G environment.
It is in this digital space that the change in the sector’s scale and the ambitions of Chinese cinema are measured. But Wuxi does not just want to serve as a filming location. The park seeks to bring together the different links in the chain: creation, production, visual effects, animation, digital technologies, post-production, and distribution. Its facilities allow companies to work in the same environment and foster bridges between traditional film professions and new technologies. In addition to blockbusters, the park also hosts the filming and production of television series mainly intended for the Chinese public. To date, more than 1,200 films have been filmed or post-produced there.
At Wuxi Studios, cinema is taking on an industrial dimension, with annual revenues approaching one billion dollars. However, the creation of the park meets a broader objective than just economic activity. Behind the studios, screens, and investments also lies the ambition to tell the story of China. Like the United States in the 20th century, the country seeks to promote what could be described as the ‘Chinese way of life.’ The cinema produced in Wuxi thus intends to show China to the world through its millennial history, its present, and its imagination.
Captured & Published at: 2026-09-16 06:24:08 (Madagascar Local Time EAT)
Original Source: https://www.lexpress.mg/2026/09/wuxi-studios-dans-les-coulisses-du.html
