Located in Pok Fu Lam Béthanie operated from 1875 to 1974 as a place for priests and missionaries from all over Asia to recover from tropical diseases before returning to their missions. In March 2003 the Legislative Council of Hong Kong approved funds for the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (HKAPA) to restore and convert Béthanie and the nearby Dairy Farm cowsheds into its Landmark Heritage campus, housing its School of Film and Television.

About our speakers: Dr Alain Le Pichon is a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure in France and Oxford. After an early teaching career at Eton College, he became a banker in London, on Wall Street and in Hong Kong. He later returned to academia and taught at the Sorbonne. He now resides in Hong Kong and Paris. His publications include works: on the British presence in China, China Trade and Empire published by Oxford University Press, and on the French missionary presence in Hong Kong, Béthanie and Nazareth, French Secrets from a British Colony published by the Hong Kong Academy for the Performing Arts. Prof Anna Pao Sohmen SBS is former Chair of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and helped to restore the 19th Century Bethanie by turning the complex into a film school. She is involved with many philanthropic projects in China and Hong Kong. Prof Sohmen founded the Chinese International School in Hong Kong in 1982 and the Sir Y K Pao School in Shanghai in 2007. She is Honorary President of Ningbo University and Harbin Normal University, advisory Professor to Shanghai Zhaotong University and Tongchi University, and has achieved the World Women’s Entrepreneurs Award and the Hong Kong Outstanding Women Entrepreneur Award. She received Hong Kong’s Silver Bauhinia Award for her public service. She is married to Dr Helmut Sohmen