BEIJING: Every Saturday, Zhang Xinsheng travels two hours for a movie date with friends, navigating Beijing’s confusing subway system with his white cane and a speaking map that screams directions on his mobile phone.
Zhang lost his sight in his early twenties due to a degenerative condition, but since going blind has discovered a love for cinema at the “talking film” club, where volunteers give vivid narrations to an auditorium of blind or partially sighted cinemagoers.
“After I listened to a film for the first time in 2014, it felt like a (new) world had opened up for me,” he said.
“I felt I could understand the film despite my blindness. There were clear images forming in my mind’s eye… as (the…
