Documentaries put Chinese creativity in the frame

Joon Nie Lau, who once taught in the communication department of Nanyang Technological University, has been involved in the annual project as a supervisor from 2014 to 2016. "I commend the organizers for the vision and ability to pull off such an ambitious theme to showcase the wide and colorful diversity of China's ethnicities. There is certainly more room to explore this theme with more time for research and production," says Lau.

She points out that it's a quite challenging work for students to scout for suitable characters to interview, film the story and edit the work within 10 days, especially in ethnic areas where they have to transcribe and translate the local dialects that even the Chinese volunteers are not so familiar with.

In this sense, Lau tends to select applicants with adequate relevant work or production experience to take part in the project.

She adds that the project has got her closer to Chinese people and culture by taking the NTU teams to Changsha, Hunan province, Lanzhou, Gansu province, as well as Chengdu and Kangding in Sichuan province. This paved the way for her series of 3-minute short videos focusing on "guardians of traditions" in Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, which was later broadcast on Singapore's Channel NewsAsia in 2017.