Visual Shanghai, a documentary series, dedicated to the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, has just finished filming. The series, comprising eight 30-minute short films, records the city's unique characteristics and scenes and lives of the people there. Our Shanghai correspondent Zhou Jing takes a closer look.

Reporter: "Visual Shanghai", a collaboration between Shanghai World Expo and Shanghai Film Group, portrays the city from eight different angles. It communicates to the audience the profoundness of its history, its ever-changing status and its perspective and shares with the audience some reflections on the city and its people, its past and present, its nature, preservation and abandonment.

President of Shanghai Film Group, Ren Zhonglun, says the documentary itself can become a heritage to the city.

"The documentary not only fulfills its mission to introduce Shanghai's cultural essence to the World Expo, it will also be a precious gift to later generations, telling them what Shanghai was like."

What's interesting about the series is that the eight episodes are shot by eight directors. With very different backgrounds, their ways of portraying the city also differ from one another. Young director from Taiwan, Zhuang Huaixuan, tells the story of the city's old town.

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The idea of shooting the documentary was hatched when Expo Land started recording the process of the relocation project on the Expo site in 2004 by taking photos and shooting videos. It started filming in 2006 and will soon be aired on television.

Besides "Visual Shanghai", Shanghai Film Group has also invited Chinese internationally-renowned filmmaker Jia Zhangke to shoot a two-hour film "Shanghai, Shanghai" for World Expo in Shanghai.

Zhou Jing, CRI News, Shanghai.