The documentary film Voy Boys (Wei Wei Wei, the Football Team), produced by Tianshan Film Studio, held its Beijing premiere on Oct 31. Co-hosted by Phoenix TV Movies Channel, HKUST Beijing Alumni Chapter and the filmmaking team, the event screened the film across three theaters simultaneously, drawing 363 audience members — a record high for single-session attendance of the documentary.
Representatives from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government and the Federation of Persons with Disabilities, along with industry guests, educators and hundreds of viewers, gathered to witness the real-life story of visually impaired teenagers chasing their dreams on the football pitch.
Shot over several years between Xinjiang and Shanghai, the film follows a group of blind and visually impaired students from the Special Education School in Shache county, Kashgar prefecture, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. Starting from scratch, the boys learn blind football, train through setbacks and eventually step onto the national competition field.
The title comes from the Spanish command "Voy" — "I'm coming" — adapted into the repeated Chinese call "wei, wei, wei." In blind football, players wear light-blocking blindfolds and track a ball fitted with a bell; off-the-ball runners shout the call to signal their position and coordinate with teammates.
At the premiere, director Li Zhiwei, co-director Liu Xiaoran and producer Su Yiyan spoke with the audience about the five-year shoot. The filmmakers said the long-term follow-up allowed the outside world to truly walk alongside the young players. Darkness, they noted, was never the real obstacle to their dreams — the sweat, resilience and joy on the pitch resonate deeply with every able-bodied viewer.
Bilal Yasin, the film's lead figure, has been selected into the preparatory squad of the Chinese National Blind Football Team, turning his determination into real strides on the grass.
More than a work of humanistic storytelling, Voy Boys is itself a long-distance race against the odds. With the creative team's persistence and support from multiple partners, the project has helped fill a blank in Xinjiang's blind football scene. It has also pushed the sport into the regular physical education curriculum of several special education schools — turning "one football team" into "a lasting change."
The film has earned nominations and honors including the Golden Silk Road Award documentary competition at the 13th Silk Road International Film Festival, the Social Documentary Recommendation at the 5th Chinese Documentary Film Conference, and a jury recommendation at the 7th Beijing International Children's Film Festival.
Since its release, Voy Boys has staged nearly 200 preview screenings across the country and built strong word-of-mouth. Over the next two years, it will continue to travel through curated screenings to more cities, letting the world see these young players who run with the wind — and rallying broader care for the visually impaired and higher-quality development of disability sports in China.
