Barrier-free films bring light to visually impaired audiences

Fourth grader Chen Yuxin, a student at the Beijing School for the Blind, has had a life-long dream of attending a movie at a cinema.

Her wish finally came true in September 2021, thanks to a public-service project dubbed "Ever Shining Cinema."

Together with her friends and guided by volunteers, the elementary student attended the barrier-free movie My People, My Homeland at the Tiantongyuan cultural arts center in Changping District, Beijing.

"I was filled with excitement. I really love the movie," said Chen. "The project and its barrier-free films enable us to enjoy the silver screen, just like sighted moviegoers."

The Ever Shining Cinema project was initiated at the end of 2017 by the Communication University of China, Beijing Gehua CATV Network Co., Ltd., and Oriental Jiaying Media Co., Ltd.

It aims to produce barrier-free films for visually impaired people through dubbing to meet their spiritual and cultural needs.

The production process of barrier-free films is hard in the eyes of Cai Yu, a 26-year-old PhD at the Communication University of China and also a volunteer of the project.

During the intervals of dialogues and sounds in the movie, volunteers would describe the characters' actions, expressions and surroundings as much as possible to help the visually impaired audiences better understand the movie, said Cai.

"For example, to explain the color 'red,' we would often use the words 'sun' and 'heat,'" said Cai. "A two-hour film often takes volunteers a week to write the narration and four hours to record in the studio."

Hard work has borne fruits. By the end of last year, the project had produced 416 barrier-free movies and one barrier-free TV series as well as held 254 public welfare screenings at cinemas, associations for the visually impaired and special-education schools across the country, benefiting over 2 million visually impaired people.

China has about 17.3 million people with visual disabilities, according to the second national sample survey on disability.

"I hope barrier-free movies can be a light guiding them in this beautiful world," said Cai.