As director of IDOCS International Documentary Forum, Zheng Qiong is full of conviction for what she is doing.

In between phone calls at her cramped office two weeks before the forum started, she did not forget to recommend a classic documentary called Forever, a top-grossing film from the Netherlands that zooms in on common folks who visit the graves of artists with letters, flowers and poems in the quiet and mysterious Cimetire du Pre-Lachaise in Paris.

Zheng (right) and her staff are battling to stay on course. Zou Hong / China Daily

It changed her impression about death.

It also brought back into focus the original intention with which she started: to spread aesthetically worthy pictures with themes that reflect "love and wisdom", especially in a country where people "have watched too much commercial rubbish on big screens".

From 2005, Zheng had been choosing good documentaries worldwide and showing them at colleges, clubs and media houses free of charge.

Sometimes, she brings in free interpreters. When they finally ran out of manpower, Zheng made it a regular program each Thursday at her office.

They have already hosted about 700 screenings.

In 2009, the IDOCS forum started with 20 international award-winning documentaries on show each winter.

To help this film genre take root, Zheng also invited world-class industry insiders (which this year included Finnish director Pirjo Honkasalo and Canadian director Larry Weinstein) to acquaint local independent filmmakers with industry standards.

For Sha Luo, a Shanghai-based independent filmmaker who attended the master classes last year, the forum can help motivate "self-entertaining" local documentaries to aim for a global horizon and standard.

Zheng is also expecting her own efforts to push for a change in the long run, for a more mature industry, for more cinemas dedicated to screening documentaries and for more audiences.

But before she even comes close to that dream, she may already be forced to consider that "this year's event may be the last".

It is always the money.

After spending all that her company, Channel Zero, had made through film distribution and admission fees charged for master classes, Zheng now has to rely on donations because no one wanted to sponsor a non-profit niche event.

Faced with an 800,000 yuan ($125,600) bill for the event, Zheng had been forced to charge for the film tickets - a 200-yuan festival ticket for all screenings, which works out to about 10 yuan each film.

But this has become the straw that broke the camel's back.

Her staff had to fend off people who insist on going into screenings without paying, and there were others who told her they wouldn't come again because they were not given a CD copy of all the films.

As soon as the project ends, she says, she will start editing her own documentaries.

"Our souls need fresh air. For me, the documentary is oxygen for the soul," she says.

You may contact the writer at hanbingbin@chinadaily.com.cn.