Qubeka said the announcement about the scholarships was music to his ears. "We are such a small country, only 56 million people, and we are also new to the game," he said. "We will grow and be stronger for it."

Though with a very young industry struggling with a Hollywood stranglehold and making a limited number of domestic films annually, in 2016, South Africa made 28 feature films, including 11 coproductions - the South African film industry's remarkable achievement is the emergence of black directors and artists and telling South African stories from the South African perspective.

"During apartheid, the options were limited; but the last 15 years have seen a large number of South African stories coming to the fore with feature films by independent filmmakers," Charles Mabaso, Chief Director for Cultural Development at South Africa's Department of Art and Culture, said. "We support films on the history and heritage of South Africa, on unsung heroes and heroines, and South Africa's relations with the rest of the world."

An example of that is South African director Mandla Dube's 2016 film Kalushi, the biopic of Solomon Mahlangu, whose transformation from a hawker to an anti-apartheid icon hanged by the state created a stir at the First BRICS Film Festival.

"It's the kind of story we don't want to lose," Mabaso said. "Our young people's consciousness will not grow if we forget such stories. We are still dominated by American films but now that we have the necessary infrastructure; hopefully we will go forward."

Righting a wrong

Though South African producer-director Xoliswa Sithole, a BAFTA and Peabody awards winner, grew up in what was then Rhodesia, today's Zimbabwe, the childhood environment she remembers was as restrictive as apartheid South Africa's. "I never saw a single black face on TV," said the 50-year-old, who was a member of the jury at the Chengdu film festival. "The only time we met white kids was in school."

Sithole, who returned to South Africa following Nelson Mandela's release from prison in 1990, thinks BRICS, which accounts for 40 percent of the global population and over 20 percent of the global GDP, is an opportunity for the five developing countries to shift the dynamics in global consciousness.

Sithole also thinks BRICS filmmakers have a responsibility to make cinema and art accessible to ordinary people. "Take art out of the preserve of the elite. In South Africa, for instance, it was white male territory for so long. The mandate of art is to educate and uplift people."

As part of addressing the global imbalance and injustice, BRICS filmmakers are thinking of working outside their communities to give a voice to the marginalized. Her first China visit has awakened Brazilian producer Claudia Da Natividade, who together with her director husband Marcos Jorge founded Zencrane Films, a Sao Paolo-based production house with 50 awards under its belt, to the plight of Brazilians of Chinese descent.

"We have Chinese immigrants in Brazil, especially in Sao Paolo," she said. "While one kind is rich and powerful, the other is very poor, subsisting on selling Chinese goods and labor. Though they also contribute to the economy, Brazilians don't connect with them. BRICS films would be a great opportunity to give visibility to such people who are invisible."

Jorge, who won 16 international awards with his debut film Estomago (Stomach), which he says is about power, sex and food, is optimistic that the BRICS filmmaking community would be able to effect a change. "The next step is to make universal movies focusing on the common themes of humanity," the 52-year-old said. "We have ample potential to make a difference in the contemporary world with our economy, culture and vitality."

Discovering South Africa

Africa holds six documentary film festivals annually and its Durban International Film Festival is one of the biggest on the continent. It has also started hosting a BRICS-focused film festival, the RapidLion Film Festival, in Johannesburg.

"South Africa has breathtaking locations, studios and talent," Mabaso said. "We want people to shoot films here. It's also cheap."

Nine provinces in South Africa have their own production facilities and Hollywood and other foreign companies have been taking advantage of that, making films in South Africa like The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Safehouse and District 9.

Mabaso said films are also a tool to boost tourism. "As soon as you see a beautiful location in a film, you want to visit it."But perhaps the best gain from the Second BRICS Film Festivals is bringing together people from different corners of the world and creating a bond of amity among them through five days of talking, eating and watching films together.

Zhang Pimin, Vice President of China Alliance of Radio, Film and Television, put it into words with touching simplicity when the baton of the BRICS Film Festival was handed over to South Africa which, as the next BRICS chair, will host the event in 2018.

"We are thousands of miles away and have different colors and cultures. But we are united under BRICS," Zhang said. "Next year, the film festival will be held in South Africa. And we will continue our story of friendship."