Road to change

Crew members spent four years living in Shawa, which is at an altitude of more than 2,000 meters on Biluo Snow Mountain, to shoot footage for the documentary. Chai Hongfang, general director of the production, recalls her early attempts to reach the village in 2017.

"I used to believe that as a veteran I had good health, but the first time I tried to go to Shawa, I was too tired to reach the destination. I had never considered there could be some villages in China that were so difficult to visit," says Chai.

When she finally reached the village on her second attempt many days later, she saw splendid scenery. "I saw mist around the remote mountains, paddy fields gleamed in the sun. Children chased after and played with each other, and villagers labored in the fields, wiping their sweat on the forehead from time to time," says Chai.

For several hundred years, Shawa's villagers had only a mountain road linking them to the outside world.

Like Po finding it difficult to repair his fridge, the film shows villagers having problems selling their agricultural produce and a sick woman having to be carried downhill on a stretcher by young male adults of the village to see a doctor.