Art director

"Friendship and mutual trust are particularly important in a world that is undergoing changes unseen in a century, which further highlights the significance of the movie The Composer," said Sabit Kurmanbekov, an art director of the movie and a screenwriter from Kazakhstan, during a recent interview with People's Daily. "The Composer" is the first movie jointly produced by China and Kazakhstan. Kurmanbekov said he is proud to be a part of it, adding that cultural cooperation between the two countries under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) enjoys bright prospects. Photo shows a monument commemorating Chinese composer Xian Xinghai on Xian Xinghai Boulevard in Almaty, Kazakhstan. (People's Daily/Qu Song) The movie was an outcome of the inter-government co-production shooting agreement signed by China and Kazakhstan in 2016. It tells the story of how late Chinese composer Xian Xinghai was saved and helped by a Kazakh peer during World War II when he got stranded in Almaty, Kazakhstan while trying to return to China from the Soviet Union. Kurmanbekov was initially invited by the Ministry of Culture and Information of Kazakhstan to be an art director of the movie. During the production, filmmakers from the two countries soon made friends with…