Beijing - Hollywood writer and director Chris D. Nebe's documentary about the Diaoyu Islands made its debut in Beijing on Sunday after its first screening earlier this month in Los Angeles.

The premiere was held in a hotel in downtown Beijing, drawing an audience of about 200 people, including journalists.

Diaoyu Islands: The Truth is produced by Monarex Hollywood Corporation and is one of 12 documentaries in Nebe's Mysterious China series introducing Chinese history, culture and rapid development to the world. The series included Tibet: The Truth.

The 40-minute Diaoyu Islands debuted in Los Angeles on March 11.

A lover of Chinese culture, Nebe said he shot the series about China as he felt tired and sad that the Western media always report a negative image (of China).

"Everything is exaggerated, I don't like this tendency. It is not productive or constructive, it's negative," he said.

"China should be admired for what your country has achieved in the last 30 years," he said.

Japan and China are locked in a bitter row over islands in the East China Sea administered by Japan as the Senkakus, but claimed by China as the Diaoyu Islands.

Nebe, president of Monarex Hollywood Corporation, founded in 1978, has produced movies including 1983's Heartbreaker and The Inheritors and The Naked Cage (1986) and won many international awards.

The film has won good reactions from the public.

Nebe, 76, spent about a year shooting the documentary at his own expense of about US$500,000.

"I did not want it to be called by the West a 'paid propaganda', it's my own money, nobody else's. I'm a film-maker. If you find something interesting, you just do it."

The experienced producer said the documentary used reliable sources, including pictures and footages he found from archives in Washington.

Xinhua