On a crisp autumn afternoon in Beijing, French director Jean-Jacques Annaud settled into an exquisitely decorated room at Yishu 8, an art center housed in the former Franco-Chinese University of Beijing founded in 1920. There, he attended an exchange event alongside Chinese artists, including dancer Wang Yabin, as part of the 2025 Beijing Culture Forum.

In the moments before the activity, the 82-year-old filmmaker sat down to share his fascination with China, where he directed Wolf Totem, one of the highest-grossing Sino-French coproductions, and his decadeslong passion for cinema.

"When I first came to China, I was absolutely a stranger, but I felt a connection with the country. For me, making movies is a learning process, and I had an intense desire to know more," says the director, his tone reflective.

"I think French and Chinese people have far more in common than they understand. It's a pleasure for me to be with people who are proud of being Chinese and of having a long culture which has influenced the world for hundreds of years," he adds.

Annaud's connection with China appears to be written in the stars. In the late 1960s, Jiang Rong, author of the best-selling novel Wolf Totem, was sent to live and work alongside herdsmen in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region. Then Annaud was dispatched to teach filmmaking in Cameroon, a French-speaking West African nation, as part of his military service.

Years later, when the novel, having been translated into more than 30 languages across 110 countries and regions, fell into Annaud's hands, he was quickly captivated by its compelling narrative, spurring him to accept an invitation from a Chinese company to direct the movie.

Recalling his travels from Paris or Los Angeles to Beijing once a month, the director remembers that both the film's preproduction and postproduction took a very long time.