Owen: At 1:00 a.m. on May 19, 2024, our originally scheduled screening venue was suddenly canceled due to unforeseen circumstances. Yet, just eight hours later, our first event was set to begin, and we already had over 200 online registrants. My team and I rushed through the streets of Hangzhou, contacting managers at one cinema after another to urgently arrange a three-day venue booking. We tapped into every available resource (I\u2019m truly grateful to the teacher who took the initiative to organize the screening and stayed with us the whole time, reassuring us). At that moment, I felt completely overwhelmed\u2014terrified that all our hard work would go to waste. Thankfully, we managed to find an alternative venue at the last minute. We kept setting up the venue until 7:00 a.m. By then, everyone had simply collapsed onto the floor in front of the theater\u2019s reception desk. We were exhausted, sweltering, and anxious, but huddling together brought us a sense of peace.
\nIce: On the afternoon of April 10, 2024, we held our first group meeting at Saint Martin\u2019s. At the time, I was actually in a period of uncertainty regarding my career and life choices\u2014my sense of purpose was shattered. So at first, I was very resistant to organizing another screening. I felt I was already in enough of a mess and didn\u2019t want to \u201cmake things harder\u201d for myself. But after my friends practically dragged me into starting this project, things gradually shifted, and my thoughts began to clarify bit by bit through the process. When the first group meeting ended, I suddenly realized: maybe this really could be accomplished. Although my current situation differs from what I had originally imagined, and although I once resented my choices so deeply, right now there are more than twenty friends willing to join me in this endeavor.
\nHan Yonglin: At 12:40 a.m. on May 8, 2024, a member of our team used markers to create a massive poster reading \u201cThe destiny of film is to be watched\u201d and hung it in the sky. This solved the problem of not having enough funds to build a large-scale poster stand.
\nCamel: On the eve of the official screening, since we had many post-screening online Q&As with the director, we racked our brains to resolve technical issues such as echoes, video, and audio in the school cinema. It took us almost an entire day to ensure the smooth running of the post-screening discussions, and the joy and hardship of that experience remain vivid in my memory.<\/p>\n
\u3010Breaking the Mold Amid Applause\u3011<\/strong><\/p>\n Monday, May 13, 2023, 8:00 PM: We were organizing an open-air screening of \u201cEyes of Truth\u201d short films under the \u201cNanchang Star\u201d Ferris wheel. A young child strolling along the riverbank was drawn to the animation on the big screen and, like me, sat on the ground at the back of the crowd to watch. About five minutes later, the child\u2019s father, growing impatient, tried to pull the child away, but the child refused to leave. His father, visibly annoyed, picked up the child and walked off, muttering, \u201cWatching this stuff too much will drive you crazy.\u201d After the screening, I shared this experience with the audience, and the whole room burst into laughter. One audience member remarked, \u201c We watched a collection of wildly diverse micro-films at Nanchang\u2019s most Instagram-famous spot, yet no one was on their phones or taking photos\u2014that in itself is a form of performance art. So, tonight\u2019s open-air screening can be seen as a \u2018grand gathering of Nanchang\u2019s crazy people.\u2019\u201d At that moment, the audience erupted once again in applause and laughter. <\/p>\n \u3010The Curator Who\u2019s Always Crying\u3011<\/strong><\/p>\n Xiao Wu: May 20, 2025, 3:00 a.m. The two stood in the eerily silent dormitory building, discussing the print run for the event postcards while taking turns closing their eyes. \u201cThe destiny of film is to be watched.\u201d And behind the act of watching lie those moments of tears and laughter that cannot be captured by data. They are archived like records, waiting for new custodians.<\/p>\n
\nZiyu: The most unforgettable moment was when we stuck the huge poster on the backboard of the basketball court. It was a crisp, sunny day\u2014a rarity for that season in Xiamen\u2014and so many unresolved issues suddenly fell into place. Actually, I can recall almost every detail: the moment I saw the beautiful materials created by my design classmates; the moment I sent out the QR code and hundreds of people joined the group chat; the moment we received the video interview from Director Niu Xiaoyu; in that era before AI, the moments of writing down every thought, word by word; the moment \u201cLife\u2019s MacGuffin\u201d popped into my head\u2026 Looking back now, it was actually quite naive. It seems the final theme of the exhibition didn\u2019t have much to do with Hitchcock after all, but it had to do with me and with certain life experiences\u2014and that was enough.
\nTeacher Mu Ma: Once, after a screening ended, the audience didn\u2019t leave right away. Everyone spontaneously stayed in the theater to discuss the film\u2014some shared their interpretations, while others talked about their own life experiences. In that moment, I suddenly realized that film truly establishes a magical connection between different people. For me, that moment was more important than any metric of \u201cevent success\u201d; it showed that our film wasn\u2019t just being seen, but had truly entered into a dialogue between people.<\/p>\n
\nMay 21, 2025, 11:00 p.m. The only way for the poor to save money is to dismantle and move things themselves, blood trickling down our legs, sweat pouring from our brows, we finished assembling the stage. Little did we know that this night had only just begun\u2026
\nMay 24, 2025, 11:00 PM: The venue notified us at the last minute that the screenings for the next two days would be canceled due to force majeure. The three of us\u2014the lead curators\u2014lay on the stage boards we\u2019d painstakingly assembled piece by piece, which hadn\u2019t yet been dismantled, and laughed in despair. Tears were still welling up in our eyes when the venue manager called back to tell us the event could continue\u2014we just needed to cancel the final screening on the 26th. She said the talking points we\u2019d hastily come up with had worked, but I felt it was the curatorial gods descending upon us!
\nYongxi: I want to talk about two moments, both of which involve \u201ctears.\u201d
\nThe first moment was after we\u2019d already coordinated the screening time and location with FIRST officials. The school suddenly barred us from using the confirmed venue due to a university-wide event, citing \u201cuniversity priorities.\u201d After multiple failed requests and attempts to find an alternative space, a faculty member told me to prepare for the event\u2019s cancellation. We\u2019d been preparing for a month by then. I broke down in tears, mentally bracing myself while making a wish to the heavens, all the while steadying my nerves and comforting my teammates as I wrote a plea to borrow an available space. Finally, fueled by my tears, we secured a new venue.
\nThe second moment was an unexpected \u201ctearful\u201d one. I had assumed I would cry only after the three-day film festival concluded, having finally completed the task, but I never expected that on the very first day, I would choose to attend the opening of the FIRST festival. Sitting in the audience, I broke down and couldn\u2019t move. Seeing the frames of film\u2014the result of two months of endless debates and meticulous refinement with my partners\u2014unfold before everyone\u2019s eyes, I felt it had all been worth it.
\nAnxious peri: In the early hours of June 24, 2024, the breeze by the Yangtze River still carried the lingering warmth of the day. We held the closing ceremony on the grassy riverbank, with clips from the films screened over the past few days playing on a loop, while empty beer bottles piled up into a small mountain at our feet. I clutched the microphone; the speech I\u2019d prepared was long since disrupted by alcohol and emotion, and I could only mumble to this group of comrades-in-arms about the bumps and the starlight along the way. I handed each member a gold-embossed certificate. Everyone\u2019s eyes welled up with tears, and I hugged them, my voice choked with emotion: \u201cThis journey has truly been so difficult.\u201d Then, fireworks suddenly burst over the river, showering us with a golden rain of light that illuminated all our exhaustion, grievances, and pride with a brilliant glow.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.firstfilm.org.cn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/324\u4e3b\u52a8\u653e\u6620\u6700\u7ec8\u7248\u672c.jpg\")
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