Promotional material of the movie

The new movie Academician of Farmers hit Chinese cinemas on Sunday. The film tells the true story of a Chinese academician's experiences of combating poverty in the country's rural areas.

Zhu Youyong, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, went to Lancang county, Southwest China's Yunnan Province, to help reduce poverty for local residents  of ethnic minority groups  through science and technology.

Actor Yu Rongguang, also the film's director, plays Zhu in the movie. Yu praised Zhu as "a real hero" as he gave up a high income offered by an overseas company to return to the motherland and dedicate all of his learning to fighting poverty.

Zhu lived in Lancang county for five years, during which he experienced many difficulties in carrying out poverty relief work because local residents were at first extremely reluctant to change their way of life. However, Zhu did not give up and eventually was able to teach residents how to plant potatoes in winter.

Jiang Xiaorong, general producer of the movie, said that the script took nearly two years to complete, and that the production team talked to Zhu and his team many times to better understand the academician and further polish the script.

"During filming, Zhu visited us several times and sold winter potatoes planted by local villagers with Yu in a livestream," Jiang said.