Lamas in China's Tibet Autonomous Region can enjoy movies without bothering to go to cinema now as a movie projection team has been set up to the service of lamaseries.

More than 500 lamas at Gandain Monastery were very pleased and delighted when they became the first group of people to receive the service. "I am a movie fan. I like movies about Kung Fu or martial art, and monasticism very much," said Cering Dawa, a young lama at Gandain.

"Many young lamas are fond of movies here, but we didn't have much time to go see a film in town cinemas because of the long distance and busy chanting activities," he said.

In addition, the lamas often attracted attention from viewers around them and felt somewhat embarrassed at times when watching a few awkward scenes with a secular audience.

The Gandain Monastery is located in the mountains 4,000 meters high and 50 kilometers east of the regional capital Lhasa. The lamas' only entertainment was a TV set, said Losang Puncog, in charge of monastery affairs.

To help improve and enrich lamas' life, the regional and municipal film companies have donated projection equipment to Gandain and promised to train projectionists and provide free copies for them.

Thus two young lamas became the first projectionists. "I hope lamas can acquaint themselves with the outside world by watching more movies," said one young lama.

The company would have a strict selection criteria about the movie topics and would set up more lamasery projection teams in the future, said Lhagba Cering, head of the regional film projection company.

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