Summary

"Screening from Within" juxtaposes the historical trajectories of the Chinese adoption of the Soviet “cinefication” movement and the contemporary transformations of itinerant film projection in China. Migrant workers of Beijing and Chengdu, rural inhabitants of Anhui, Sichuan and the Aba Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, as well as projectionists from today and yesterday, share their thoughts, memory and experience about government and NGO-sponsored film screenings. Many of them remember the times when itinerant screening attracted huge crowds of viewers. Others—the younger ones—take video cameras in their own hands to film “from within.”