Touching tale is a real eye-opener

Both the director and the producer say that, while insufficient funding made the filmmaking process difficult, the crew remained cheerful and determined.

"Although we didn't have enough money and there were too many problems, I felt that the time we spent together was filled with joy. We always found solutions and constantly lifted each other's spirits," Tian says.

Tian shared several anecdotes from the production. For instance, when preparing to shoot the fireworks scene in the film, the crew could only purchase a limited number of fireworks. As it happened to be around Spring Festival, the crew requested that the villagers hold back on setting off their own fireworks until the scene was ready to be filmed.

On another occasion, the crew couldn't even afford petrol for their vehicles. Hui had to borrow 30,000 yuan ($4,400) from his cousin, so that the filming could continue.

"We are not trying to incite sympathy. The hardships we encountered are not important. What matters is our perseverance in expressing what we wanted to convey," Bai Zhiqiang says.

The filming process involved 12 revisions of his screenplay, and he was assisted by veteran scriptwriter Lu Wei, who Bai Zhiqiang met during a previous documentary shoot. Lu later served as the film's supervisor and Bai Zhiqiang's scriptwriting mentor.