The charity behind the British Academy Film Awards - the British version of the Oscars - has made its first step into Asia by starting educational projects in Hong Kong.
The British Academy of Film and Television Acts (Bafta) also marked its move with a special award to centenarian entertainment mogul Sir Run Run Shaw.
Until now the academy's only overseas office has been in the United States, but it is ready to expand its influence in another continent with a booming creative scene.
"We see Asia as an incredibly creative region with growing importance as content creator," Bafta chief executive Amanda Berry said.
"Hong Kong makes us very welcome. We want to expand into China, and it's probably easier to start in Hong Kong."
To get things started, Eddie Redmayne from the film version of Les Miserables has flown in to give an acting master class to students at the Academy for Performing Arts today.
The academy - which specialises in television, movies and games and whose film awards have gone to such movie legends as Francois Truffaut, Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock - also announced it would launch a scholarship enabling two local people to fly to Britain for postgraduate studies and two Britons to come to Hong Kong to work in exchange.