The 9th Rural Film Week kicks off in Huairou: 20 open-air screenings enter the village

  The 9th Rural Film Week of China Farmers Harvest Festival 2026 kicked off on September 27 in Yangsong Town, Huairou District, Beijing. The main activities will last until September 29, and some projects have been extended to October 3.With the theme of "Rural Revitalization, Light and Shadow Together", this year's film week combines rural-themed films, open-air public welfare screenings, industry exchanges and harvest markets into the same event arrangement.The audience can not only see rural life on the screen, but also enter villages, studios and agricultural demonstration sites to feel the connection between the images and the real countryside.

The part of the film week that is closest to ordinary audiences is the approximately 20 open-air charity screenings.From September 27th to 29th, Huairou Citizen Square and several villager squares became temporary cinemas, and rural-themed films met local people in the dark.Open-air movies were once an important public cultural event in many villages, and a screen could bring neighbors together again.Nowadays, projection equipment and film types have changed, but this way of joint viewing still retains a distinct local memory.

The “Country Movie Night” held on the evening of September 28th concentrated on the film and television content of this event.Program performances, on-site interviews and movie recommendation results were arranged on the same stage, and the results of the “2026 Rural Revitalization Themed Movie Recommendation Activity” were also released that night.This gives rural-themed creations an opportunity to make a concentrated appearance. Creators can see how different regions express agricultural production, returning youth, grassroots governance and village changes. Audiences can also discover that rural images have long gone beyond a single narrative of suffering or nostalgia.

The event's landing in Yangsong Town is related to Huairou's long-term film and television industry foundation.The China Film Capital has gathered 13,000 film and television culture and related enterprises, built 47 professional studios, and has produced nearly 5,000 film and television works.Movies, animations, mini-series, TV series, e-sports and casual games are gathered here, providing a complete chain for rural stories from scripting, shooting to post-production.The surrounding villages and natural landscapes provide the creators with a realistic space for direct observation and framing.

The rural-themed film development exchange meeting held on September 29 extended the discussion from screening to creation and industry.Industry experts, film and television producers, academics and local companies in China's film capital participated in the conference, and the topics focused on how to sustainably produce rural themes and how to integrate film and television projects with local development.The real countryside is changing rapidly. Creators need to enter life and accumulate characters, but also find contradictions and emotions suitable for film expression, and avoid filming the new countryside into a neat display of results.

Film Week simultaneously collects rural-themed scripts from the public, hoping to reserve more stories from the source.The countryside is rich in personal relationships and changes of the times: agricultural technology updates affect production methods, young people traveling between urban and rural areas change family structures, and e-commerce, cultural tourism and intangible cultural heritage projects bring new career choices.If the script solicitation can attract authors who are familiar with grassroots life to participate, local experience will have the opportunity to be transformed into works with unique characters and plots, leaving a more solid foundation for future filming.

A team of “rural film week experience officers” also entered Huairou Science City, China Film Capital and Harmony Village Demonstration Site.Film and television practitioners, short video creators, media reporters and local farmer representatives recorded the landscape, humanities and harvest scenes from their respective perspectives.Short videos are suitable for rapid dissemination, and movies can provide a more complete narrative. The two media can be used in parallel during activities, allowing rural images to reach the audience through different lengths and different perspectives.

From September 27th to October 3rd, the harvest market at the main venue of Yangsong Town will continue to be open, divided into four areas: light and shadow exploration, rural selection, national fashion and scenery, and agricultural science and technology.Live broadcasts of agricultural assistance, agricultural machinery competitions, agricultural equipment exhibitions, intangible cultural heritage performances and farming experiences are interspersed. Branch venues are also set up in Jiuduhe, Yanqi, Tanghekou, Changshaoying and other places.With the addition of the “Village Super Football Invitational Tournament and ”Village BA% mass events, the boundaries between the Film Week and the Harvest Festival have been further opened. Foreign audiences can be exposed to films, agricultural products, local culture and mass sports in one trip.

The value of Rural Film Week ultimately comes back to two scenes: one is the shooting scene, whether the creators can really go into the village and shoot today's rural characters; the other is the screening scene, whether high-quality films can reach grassroots audiences.Huairou has connected charity screenings, industrial exchanges, script collection and cultural tourism consumption this time, establishing a visible channel for the two sites.Films record changes in rural areas, and rural areas also provide Chinese films with new characters and stories that continue to grow.