“Light up Grow up Project” (“光影助力成长计划”) hosted events in Macau last week where local students had the opportunity to meet and interact with the main creators of film and television works from the mainland, discussing the miniseries To the Wonder (我的阿勒泰) and the documentary film Tough Out (棒！少年), both produced by iQIYI*, a Beijing-based video streaming service company.
“Light up Grow up Project” is a public welfare brand initiative jointly launched by iQIYI’s Corporate Social Responsibility team and the China Education Development Foundation. Since 2019, the project has been implemented in areas including Gansu, Qinglong, Shanxi, Xinjiang and Yunnan promoting film and television education in the country.
Last week’s event marked the first time the programme has been extended beyond the mainland, aiming to promote moral, aesthetic, and patriotic education in schools in Macau through film and television initiatives.
To the Wonder is a story which follows a Han Chinese girl who grew up in Altay, Xinjiang. At 19, she goes to Urumqi to work, originally determined to pursue her literary dreams in the big city. However, after encountering setbacks in her career, she returned to her hometown to live with her mother, when she gradually discovered the beauty of life in the pastoral area of Altay.
Tough Out talks about a group of troubled teenagers who learnt to play baseball with a famous coach in the suburbs of Beijing, while struggling with their internal conflicts and their inability to play baseball as well as professionals.
Last Wednesday, a group of local teachers and students visited the “Love the Country, Love Macao Educational Base for the Youth” in Nape, where the main creators of the films were present. On the following day, the creators went to two local schools to share their experience and exchange views.
Ma Hu, the protagonist of Tough Out, shared his learning and growth experiences with the students, discussing the differences between life as an actor and life as an athlete. Students asked interesting questionings about how Ma managed to balance school, filming and sport, with Ma revealing that he grew up without his parents around, and that he had been away from his home without going back for several years, a revelation to local students as Ma’s experience is totally new and unimaginable for them.
Ma also taught them how to swing a bat and throw a baseball. In Macau, there is no baseball field, and students were very excited to put on the gloves and have a swing, under the guidance of Ma on stage.
Alima (阿丽玛), the protagonist of To the Wonder, took on the role of ambassador for Altay, introducing the beautiful film locations to the students. Yeerboli, a Kazakh from Xinjiang and the music producer for the series, performed the soundtrack by playing and singing it on guitar. He also gave a live demonstration, guiding Macau students in experiencing the traditional Kazakh instrument, the dombra, a long-necked string instrument.
Producer Zhang Shuo led the students to explore the differences between documentary and fiction from various angles, such as character development, storytelling, and production techniques. This provided the students with a clearer understanding of the distinctive features of different types of film and television works.
After the sessions, one student told reporters that he was deeply moved by the creators’ experiences and expressed a desire to visit Altay with family and friends one day. He wanted to personally experience the landscape and culture depicted in the stories and thanked the creators for organising this event.
According to a statement from iQIYI, the project has benefited nearly 1,700 schools and 700,000 primary and secondary school students in the mainland through various formats, including donating film and television educational resources, organising mobile screenings, creating online special sections, offering film and television classes, and inviting creators to engage with students.
* The name “iQIYI” (爱奇艺) can be translated to mean “love”, “curiosity”, and “art” in English. The pronunciation in English is “eye-chee-yee”. iQIYI is a mainland Chinese subscription video on-demand service that offers a wide range of films and TV series, primarily focusing on Asian content. It has since evolved into a major platform for streaming in mainland China. – Source: Poe
Ma Hu (left), the protagonist of Tough Out, teaches students how to swing the bat on Thursday at Luís Gonzaga Gomes Luso-Chinese Secondary School. – Photos: William Chan
Music Producer Yeerboli (right) and local students play the traditional Kazakh instrument dombra.
A student asks the film creators a question during the meeting at the “Love the Country, Love Macao Educational Base for the Youth” in Nape last Wednesday.
Students take a selfie with Ma Hu
