Changchun effect

For many people, facilities such as a swing, seesaw or slide are likely to be the first pieces of equipment that come to mind when picturing a playground.

But for actor Liu Ye, who spent his childhood at the Changchun Film Studio－New China's first movie production company located in Jilin province－his playgrounds were the soundstages there.

Having grown up in Changchun, the provincial capital, Liu served as the ambassador of the 15th Changchun Film Festival, an annual event that was held in early September.

Among the country's first such post-outbreak events, where awards were presented in person, the festival is a way to boost domestic filmmakers' confidence in the speeding up of the industry's recovery.

"My childhood memories are tightly bound with the cinema circle in Changchun," Liu says during a telephone interview with China Daily.

Both his parents worked at the Changchun studio－his father as a light technician and his mother as an accountant with the internal labor union.

Liu says his family lived in the staff dormitories at the studio, which also had a kindergarten, school and hospital.

"The soundstages were my playgrounds, where you could see a lot of props, such as dummies. I still remember how shocked I was to see actors 'fly' while they were shooting a Monkey King-themed movie on a set designed to resemble the Flaming Mountain (a fictional setting in the 16th-century novel Journey to the West)."