Screen of dreams for rural children

Visionary movie project inspires a young audience as it shows heroic deeds that built modern China, Xu Fan reports.

As night fell, the summer heat faded away. On the playground of Gouba Conference Red Army Elementary School in Zunyi, Southwest China's Guizhou province, nearly 200 children and teachers sat on their stools to watch the movie 1921, a 140-minute revolutionary epic that recounts the founding of the Communist Party of China.

In front of them was a large white projector screen tied to two erected bamboo poles. For most of the children in grades one through six, it was the first time in their lives that they had watched a movie on such a "giant" screen, as there is no cinema in Gouba village, which has approximately 760 households.