Zhang Ziyi Promotes for AIDS

Actress Zhang Ziyi joined director Gu Changwei in Beijing on Tuesday to tout the making of China's first feature film to address the country's growing HIV/AIDS problem in what producers hope will be a commercial release at the end of 2010.

"Life Is A Miracle" -- budgeted at about 20 million yuan ($3 million) by Beijing-based Stellar Megamedia and Beijing Forbidden City Film Co -- also stars Hong Kong actor Aaron Kwok and Pu Cunxin, an actor who has spearheaded China's official AIDS awareness campaigns.

Much of the current rapid spread of HIV in China has been through intravenous drug use and prostitution, resulting in as many as 1.5 million people affected, with some estimates going much higher.

Gu, whose film "Peacock" won the Silver Bear at Berlin in 2005, was feted at a news conference by members of the government for tackling a rural love story following two HIV infected characters played by Zhang and Kwok in their first on-screen collaboration.

"The point of this movie is to use the medium to show our society caring for AIDS victims," a Ministry of Health representative said. "Only then can we create a good atmosphere for treating the prejudice they suffer."

In many rural areas of China during the 1990s, particularly in the province of Henan, hundreds of thousands of farmers were infected with HIV when they donated blood to state-run programs that used contaminated needles.

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