BEIJING, Aug. 2 (Xinhua) -- Using only a pencil and scissors, Zhao Meiling, a 57-year-old artist in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, brought to life the development of Chinese villages from a single sheet of paper.
Under Zhao's influence, her 10-year-old granddaughter has also become obsessed with paper-cutting and aspires to carry on the traditional art of paper design.
Their stories inspired Seenae Choi, a post-graduate student from York University in Canada, to create a short documentary named "Big Scissors Small Scissors."
The documentary is one of the six works recently being screened at the annual event "Looking China," a program initiated by Beijing Normal University in 2011 aiming to draw young film-makers from around the world to explore Chinese culture by making short documentaries.
To date, more than 600 short videos have been produced in China by over 600 participants from universities in 60 countries and regions, such as the United States, Britain and France.
"Taking part in this project, I finally got to explore some parts of the fascinating Chinese culture," Choi said. Specializing in dance film making, she added that paper-cutting resonated with her as "it is visually simulated and just like dancing with the paper."
"I hope that the film continues to inspire people and teaches them that paper-cutting is not an old-fashioned tradition," Choi said.
She is among a total of 102 participants of this year's "Looking China" event. They visited over 10 provincial-level regions in China and featured various topics in their documentaries, ranging from the Great Wall and pandas to ethnic music and gourmet cuisine.
Ben Zrihen, a third-year student from Tel Aviv University, spent three weeks following Ge Yuxiu, a Chinese wildlife photographer, filming the gorgeous scenery in Qinghai Province and recording Ge's fascination with nature.
"My subject had been to Qinghai over 200 times and was once surrounded by wolves, fell through the ice, and got stuck in swamps, only to capture the best possible moments of the animals," Zrihen said, adding that Ge demonstrated the obsession a person can have with nature, which is exactly the "China Story" he wants to tell.
Despite language barriers, teamwork was never a problem as Ben and Ge could always reach an unspoken agreement. "Human emotions are shared and transcend national boundaries. These past days in China have been very rewarding," he noted.
Huang Huilin, the founder of "Looking China," said that the event serves as a bridge for communication and friendship between youths from China and the rest of the world and helps the participants to experience the diversity of Chinese culture.
"The short documentaries feature not only China's history and culture, but kindness and happiness of the Chinese people as well," said Dov Boris Steuer, a professor at Tel Aviv University. "The project really offers them a platform to talk and get to know the Chinese people. This is truly cultural communication."
