The youngest member of the BRICS bloc sent the largest delegation with 32 members, comprising film directors, producers, actors, government officials and five members of the Amajuba Enhlanha Zulu Traditional Dance Institution in Durban, South Africa, who were eager to learn about films and film festivals from the other more experienced members of the grouping.

Makhotso Magdeline Sotyu, South African Deputy Minister of Arts and Culture, said the positive manner in which the people of Chengdu embraced her delegation and other visitors was an inspiration for 2018, when South Africa would assume the rotating BRICS chairmanship and host the Third BRICS Film Festival.

She said it would be very fortunate to hold the Third BRICS Film Festival in South Africa in 2018, which is also the birth centenary of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela.

The minister said she was happy that the BRICS film industries had started to see the fruits of their cooperation. "These also represent a new model of cooperation not aligned or dictated by Europe or America, but one from countries with similar aspirations and outlook on the world economy and politics on an equal basis," she remarked.

The 2018 BRICS Film Festival in South Africa, she assured, would consolidate and strengthen the achievements of its predecessors and share the best practices and benchmarks of the industries of the other BRICS member countries.

Though a very young industry struggling with a Hollywood stranglehold and making a limited number of domestic films annually - in the first half of 2017, South Africa made eight feature films and 11 co-productions - the South Africa film industry's remarkable achievement is the significant presence of women, as directors, producers and at other levels, and the emergence of black directors and artists.

Thabo Philip Molefe, CEO at the National Film and Video Foundation of South Africa, attributed it to the ongoing democratization in all sectors of South African society. "It is not just a display in China, but there is equality in representation at all levels and various sectors of society. Gender equality is very important because we come from an imbalanced past," he said.

The South African Film Day started with the screening of Happiness Is a Four-Letter Word, a romantic comedy directed by Thabang Moleya, which appeared shallow despite the build-up by its producer Bongiwe Selane, who described herself as dedicated to telling stories from the woman's perspective.

A better representation of the inventiveness and vitality of the South African film industry came from the short film Stillborn by 38-year-old director Jahmil Qubeka, which was part of the first BRICS coproduction Where Has Time Gone?, an anthology of five tales from the five member countries.

A science fiction set 10,000 years in the future, it was also a metaphor for the heedless destruction of humanity and the environment and the longing to go back to a simple primeval world that still had human emotions.

"For a long time, South Africa was isolated," Qubeka said, talking about how he grew up in an apartheid country segregated into states, "mini countries" where different communities were sequestered and needed "passports" to go outside their areas. He made films in his head to escape from the repression.

"So our world view was very small," Qubeka added. "People had no idea of their place in the world. BRICS gives us a place at the table."

Sotyu said since the collapse of apartheid, the African National Congress-led government deemed it important for South Africa to enter into mutually beneficial relations with other countries and film cooperation was encouraged and established with various partners in the world.

"I met with Zhang Hongsen, Chinese Vice Minister of State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, and we agreed to sign a film co-production [agreement] in 2018 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of diplomatic relations between South Africa and China," she said.

China will be offering 40 scholarships to other BRICS nations for sustained development of the BRICS film industry.

The diversity in South African filmmakers was also represented by films by Uga Carlini, who is of Italian descent (Alison, the true story of a survivor who was raped, stabbed, disemboweled and left to die), Judy Naidoo, whose forefathers came to South Africa from India (Hatchet Hour, a thriller), and Sara Blecher, partly of Lithuanian descent from her grandfather's side whose family members were mostly killed by the Nazis during World War II (Ayanda, the story of a young woman).

(Reporting from Chengdu)