Veteran author's Xinjiang story set for the screen

A film project adapting a short story by veteran writer Wang Meng was launched on May 18 at Tianshan Film Studio in Urumqi, the capital of Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. The film, In Ili, draws on Wang's six-year experience in the region's Ili Kazak autonomous prefecture.

Born in October 1934, Wang is a recipient of the national honorary title "People's Artist" and a former minister of culture. From the ages of 29 to 45, he spent 16 years in Xinjiang, mostly in Urumqi and Ili. In 1965, he went to what is now the Bayandai town of Ili's Yining city, where he lived and worked with local farmers, learned the Uygur language and became drawn to the local culture. Those six years became the basis for his short story collection In Ili, written from 1983-84.

According to The Writers Publishing House, the work's publisher, it's set for global translation and publication. Projects for foreign-language editions, including English, Spanish and French, have already been approved.

The film will adapt one piece from it, titled Pale Gray Eyes. The story is told from the first-person perspective of a writer named Lao Wang — a surname he shares with the author himself. It follows his observations of and interactions with a young carpenter and his wife, as well as various villagers. In their shared life and emotions, the community supports one another.

At the launch ceremony, Wang expressed hope that the film would be grounded in life and would create rich, well-rounded personalities. "The people of Xinjiang's various ethnic groups are diverse, yet they share warmth, vitality, wisdom, optimism, romance and imagination," he said, adding that they have their own unique ways of understanding and solving problems.

Wang said his characters have distinct personalities and wisdom that fit their time. They're friendly, harmonious and tolerant. For him, the work vividly shows how different ethnic groups in Xinjiang share a common destiny, a common life and common emotions, as well as how their cultures exchange, integrate and interact.

According to Jing Luzhou, Party secretary of Tianshan Film Studio, the production team conducted field research in Ili in September 2025, and the script has been through several rounds of revisions. Shooting is scheduled to begin in the second half of this year, with release expected by the end of 2027.

Xirzat Yahup, the film's director, noted that the crew's goal is to capture the optimism and wisdom of the people who are deeply rooted in the land. "They are optimistic. They talk with pride. There's a lot of philosophy about life in Wang's writing, and I believe this will leave room for the audience to reflect on life's truths," he said.

"That requires careful thinking about how to translate these ideas onto the screen through cinematography."

While refining the script, he said, they are scouting various filming locations in Ili and considering re-creating village scenes of the 1960s, as decades of development have brought tremendous changes to Bayandai.

Xirzat Yahup's biographical film Wan Tongshu is currently in theaters. It tells how musicologist Wan Tongshu (1923-2023) and his wife Lian Xiaomei, both from the Central Conservatory of Music, dedicated their lives in Xinjiang to preserving Muqam, a traditional performing art form combining music, dance and poetry. The Uygur Muqam of Xinjiang was inscribed on UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage list in 2005.

From 1951 to 1960, Wan and his wife recorded, transcribed, collated and published the musical scores for Muqam, helping to pass down and promote the art form. Wang, a former colleague of Wan in Urumqi, has recently written a film review highlighting Muqam and reminiscing about his old friends.