French producer Rosem Films has established a Hong Kong production office, which will produce the next projects from award-winning Chinese directors Wang Chao and Guo Xiaolu.

Headed by Anais Martane, the Hong Kong entity will develop and co-produce projects with mainland China, beginning with Wang's upcoming drama Starting Over, a co-production with Hangzhou-based Golden Globe Pictures. Martane will also oversee a Beijing representative office.

According to Rosem Films' founder Sylvain Bursztejn, the Hong Kong entity will enter into official co-productions with China, something which his Paris-based company is currently unable to do, as there is still no co-production treaty between China and France.

'Also, as production increases in Asia, and especially in China, we feel that most of Rosem's projects should be produced in Hong Kong,' Bursztejn said. 'We will continue to produce French movies, and will pre-sell and finance Asian movies in Europe, but the model now is to use Hong Kong as a base for developing Asian projects.'

Wang, who picked up the top prize in Cannes' Un Certain Regard last year for Luxury Car, is scheduled to start shooting Starting Over in the Chinese city of Hangzhou on September 1. The film tells story of a doctor who faces a moral dilemma when his wife and her lover are seriously injured in a car crash and the wife loses her memory of the affair.

At a press conference at the Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF) today, Wang described the project as his most accessible to date. Bursztejn will produce with Golden Globe Pictures' general manager Chen Jinhai.

In addition, Rosem is co-producing Guo's La Chinoise with the UK 's Tigerlily Films. Developed by Tigerlily and Film Four, the project is based on Guo's novel, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers, and tells the story of a young Chinese girl who falls in love with a gangster in Beijing and then runs away to London when he is killed.

Tigerlily's Natasha Dack is producing the film, which is scheduled to start shooting in the fourth quarter of this year, with Bursztejn as co-producer. The project has also secured funding from France 's Fonds Sud.

Guo, a female novelist and filmmaker, came to international attention with How Is Your Fish Today' which won the Netpac award at Rotterdam and the Grand Prix at the Creteil International Women's Festival earlier this year.

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