"Although at that time we were battling hardships and a shortage of supplies, all of us were determined to believe that a New China would rise, and Chinese people would lead a better life," says Tian.

Talking about the optimistic and striving spirit of Yan'an, also exemplified by the Eighth Route Army's 359th Brigade reclamation in Nanniwan, a previously barren wasteland on the outskirts of Yan'an, Tian recalls that it has become a precious memory that has inspired her artistic creations over the decades since.

The brigade's achievements－which saw a 100-fold increase in cultivated areas and a nearly 200-fold rise in grain output from 1940 to 1944－was recorded in the documentary Shengchan Yu Zhandou Jiehe Qilai (Engaging in Production While Fighting), also known as Nanniwan, produced by the Yan'an Film Troupe, the first movie production arm established by the CPC.

Tian was impressed by the documentary's photographer, the late Wu Yinxian (1900-94), who later worked as the head of Northeast Film Studio, the first movie production base in New China. The studio produced a lot of influential movies, including The White-Haired Girl, in which Tian made her big screen debut playing Xi'er, a farmer's daughter who struggles with a miserable life.