Telling China's story

Host and architect Danny Forster visits some of China's ambitious projects in the documentary How China Works, which will be aired as the first program of Discovery Channel's new anthology Hour China. Photo provided to China Daily

Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific has been collaborating with CICC since 2004. By now they've jointly produced over 65 hours of China-related documentaries including China's Man Made Marvels and Ultimate Olympics.

In 2010, the two sides launched China Imagica, a project that brings Discovery's award-winning producers in conversations with local filmmakers involved in the making of the documentaries.

In the past decade, Discovery's "elite director program" has also sponsored and provided professional training to hopeful young Chinese filmmakers.

Channa says he has come to understand China better by seeing the way young people think.

Channa came to China 15 years ago. His Indian background helped him to understand his neighboring country's many changes－from being known as a manufacturing hub to aspiring to innovation.

"I understand how it feels to wake up among one billion people," he says.

Channa believes China is the world's new superpower and shares similarities with developed countries in the West.

But given the complexity and scale of its development, he adds, China's development is not something that can be copied from elsewhere.

"You have to find your own unique pathway from here," he says.

"The documentaries are not only about what China has been in the past decade, but rather indicate what it will become in the next five years."

Related:

Discovery Networks launches Hour China

More Chinese film companies tap into Hollywood