经典的胶片电影勾起无限回忆

The fifth Beijing International Film Festival has just wrapped up Thursday, and organizers have found a new way to wow audiences by turning to the past. The Beijing Zhongjian Cinema will screen eight movies using classic filmstrip reels.

For movie fans who grew up in the digital era, watching movies on actual filmstrips is quite an experience.

This reminds me of my childhood when I watched films with my parents, sitting on a little stool, listening to that old sound. It is something you cannot experience in a fast-paced lifestyle.

After one screening, many were reluctant to leave, but took home a souvenir photo of the old-fashioned filmstrip projector.

"I felt very excited, it's worthwhile, I'm so lucky. I think we need to pay more attention to this kind of motion picture films because it is the footprint of an era."

Chairs were removed from the first three rows of the theater, to allow the audience to witness the whole film projection process.

"I felt a sense of fulfillment. While projecting movies on films, I used to prefer to bend over the window and watch the audience laugh. I had a sense of fulfillment when I saw them happy," Projectionist Meng Chao said.

The film reels' arrival in Beijing is just the latest stop in their journey around the world, and through history.

"Some filmstrips were produced 50 to 60 years ago, but there were preserved well. The films have a book where you write down when and where it was screened, we do the same. So you can see all the places it has been shown throughout the decades. It feels like you are touching history. You can't experience this with digital movies," Wang Lin, planning supervisor of Beijing Zhongjian Cinema, said.

Among the filmstrips on Zhongjian Cinema's schedule are Before Sunrise and City of God. The rest of the Beijing Film Festival will run until Thursday, with a total of 360 movies from 50 countries set to be screened.