AS the daylight fades, Yang Mingjin sets up a big cloth screen, ready to screen a movie free of charge for the locals living deep in the mountains of Yunnan Province.

Over the past 24 years, Yang, a tire-shop owner, has provided more than 4,500 screenings in Lushui, Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan, and brought entertainment to the rural residents in this remote corner of Southwest China.

Yang’s white pickup truck finally arrived at an outdoor screening venue on the mountain top after a bumpy trip. He unloaded the screening equipment, adjusted it and set up the stereo speakers. Once the music sounded, nearby villagers came one by one and gathered in front of the screen.

The film being screened was “The Captain,” a Chinese blockbuster based on a real-life emergency airplane landing.

When the film ended, several curious children gathered in front of the projector; one of them asked, “Did the images come out of this?”

This reminded Yang of his own childhood. The loudspeakers of his village had announced the screening of a movie.

He came running to the screening venue but couldn’t afford a ticket. He found a hole in the fences and wriggled through it, but was soon spotted by the ticket seller, and evicted. It was an embarrassing experience.

Later, he swapped eggs for tickets and was able to enjoy films. That night, as he lay in bed, his mind was dwelling on the movie. He thought to himself: “In the future, I will let people watch films for free!”

In 1998, Yang graduated from an auto-repair school and bought a projector to screen films for local people in his spare time. Later, a rural public welfare film screening project was implemented nationwide, and Yang worked as a volunteer film projectionist. Since then, he has gone from village to village, sharing his passion for movies.

“Do people in the movies also speak our Lisu language?” an audience member asked.

Yang’s answer was positive.

An old man held Yang’s hand and thanked him, because he could enjoy the movie better in Lisu language.

Three months before, when he was in the same village to screen a film, a villager came to inquire whether there were films in their native language. Yang then realized that the old man was happy to be able to watch films but could hardly understand them.

He called the film studio and learned that a technology could be applied to convert the spoken lines into the Lisu language. After three months of hard work, Yang made it work.

On the day of the first screening, he put on a white shirt for this occasion.

It seemed that everyone had turned out to watch the movie. All the seats were taken, some viewers sat on a nearby roof, and others watched it up in a tree. Yang felt all his hard work had paid off.

In 2018, Yang’s younger daughter died in a liquefied petroleum gas explosion at home. His wife was badly injured.Over the following two years, Yang accompanied his wife to the provincial capital Kunming for treatment. Yang said that in the darkest moments of his life, it was films that gave him strength. “People in the movies can persevere and overcome obstacles, and I was inspired by them.”(Xinhua)