Memet says: "At 30, I got 300,000 yuan as support fund. It may be a turning point in my life. A student who has just graduated from school doesn't have much money, so the fund is vital for my next film. I will make good use of it."

For prizewinning director Ji Jinglu, the festival has enabled her to reconnect with herself.

"After making a film, I used to feel I no longer had any connection with it, and even negated my feelings about it, like a piece of white paper ready to make the next film," she says. "But by participating in this festival, I found my former self again."

Judges of the festival include Wang, Hu Zhifeng, deputy director of the Beijing Film Academy, and Ruby Chen, co-founder of CNEX Foundation, a nonprofit in the film industry.

Hu says that the festival showed the filmmakers' sense of social care, better imagination and creativity, displaying "life landscapes".