Heroes of the big screen

Team of women works hard to ensure that rural residents get to enjoy some movie magic, Xu Lin and Zhou Lihua report in Wuhan.

As the sun begins to drop, there's a lively bustle in the remote mountain village.

The serenity of the evening is pierced by a loudspeaker broadcasting the message that the open-air film screening is about to start, as villagers arrive at a small square, one after another, each carrying their own stools.

While watching movies, they crack and eat melon seeds and discuss the plot with each other, making for a lively scene.

"I particularly enjoy watching war movies. They remind me of my old comrades, making me cherish my current happy life even more," says villager and retired soldier Ming Tingmao.

It's a regular entertainment for rural dwellers in Yunyang district, Shiyan city, Central China's Hubei province.

In 2007, the district's film distribution and exhibition corporation formed a group of female projectionists, responding to the nation's call of "bringing culture to the countryside".

Each person in the group is in charge of a specific area, ensuring that every village has the opportunity to watch movies once a month. In the years since the group's inception, the number of movie screenings has exceeded 45,000, benefiting all of the villages in the district.

"I've traveled to many places and interacted with various people, and I could never have had such an experience in the city. I'm proud that what I bring to the villagers is nourishment for the mind, enriching their leisure time and lives," says Xiong Yan, 46, who joined the team when it was founded.

Formerly a projectionist at a cinema in the city, she notes that the difference between her old job and her current calling is that, while showing outdoor movies in the rural areas, she can interact directly with the audience and observe their immediate reactions up close.

"My colleagues and I had grown up in the city and were not accustomed to the rural environment at first. Now we have become strong, capable women, who can lift the 50 kilograms of equipment off the vehicle on our own," she says. She has learned how to identify different farm crops, and also helps villagers do farm work, such as digging up peanut plants and harvesting wheat.

The team's annual work cycle runs from March to early October, due to safety concerns. In the other months, the weather in the mountainous areas is cold, making the road slippery and dangerous to travel on.

Prior to organizing the movie screenings, they solicit opinions from villagers to create a movie list and then post the detailed information on a board as a public notice. Villagers prefer feature films, particularly those with a revolutionary theme, police and gangster movies, comedies and traditional operas.

Some elderly people like to watch films, but they have mobility issues, so the team visit their houses to give them personal movie screenings.

The projectionists have to move equipment, erect the big screen, connect the power supply, set up the sound system and adjust the projector. At the interval between the two movies, they routinely show a short educational film, with subjects ranging from traffic safety and telecom fraud to fire prevention.