HOLLYWOOD NOTABLES VISITING CHINA FOR BEIJING FILM FESTIVAL

Several notable American film figures are flying to Beijing next week to appear on a panel at the Beijing Film Festival on Sino-Foreign Film Co-production. They include Oliver Stone (billed in the festival’s publicity as “William Oliver Stone, famous American director), Alfonso Cuarón, MPAA chief Christopher Dodd, and Paramount COO Frederick Huntsberry. The festival is scheduled to open on April 16 with a screening of French director Christophe Gans’s Beauty and the Beast, starring Vincent Cassel and Léa Seydoux. Many attending the festival are likely to see several U.S. films that were never released on the Chinese mainland. They include the Disney/Pixar 2008 feature WALL-E, which won an Oscar for best animated film.