Entertainment - September 1, 2021

‘Talking movies’: The Chinese cinema bringing film to blind audiences

abrempongradiogh September 1, 2021

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Every Saturday, Zhang Xinsheng travels two hours for a movie date with friends, navigating Beijing’s confusing subway system with his white cane and a speaking map that screams directions on his mobile phone.

Zhang lost his sight in his early twenties due to a degenerative condition, but since going blind has discovered a love for cinema at the “talking film” club, where volunteers give vivid narrations to an auditorium of blind or partially sighted cinemagoers.

“After I listened to a film for the first time in 2014, it felt like a (new) world had opened up for me,” he said.

“I felt I could understand the film despite my blindness. There were clear images forming in my mind’s eye… as (the narrator) described the scenes… of laughter, the crying.”

Now 51, he makes the weekly pilgrimage to a theatre in Qianmen, in the heart of old Beijing, without fail.

Dozens of blind moviegoers come to the Saturday screenings organised Xin Mu Theater, a small group of volunteers who were the first to introduce films to blind audiences in China.

Their method is surprisingly low-tech. A narrator describes what is happening on screen, including facial expressions, unspoken gestures, the setting and costumes.

They relay visual clues that would otherwise be missed, like a sudden change of scenery from falling leaves to snow that conveys the passage of time.