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China Exclusive: Uygur photographer to launch documentary on Xinjiangers

Xinhua, May 23, 2016 Adjust font size:

Kurbanjan Samat, the man behind the photo essay "I Am from Xinjiang," is putting the finishing touches to a documentary of the same name, set for release next month.

The six-episode documentary features 18 Xinjiangers of various ethnicities and professions, including an actor, musician, businessman, teacher and street vendor.

It will be broadcast by China's state television broadcaster CCTV starting June 22.

Since December 2014, Uygur photographer Kurbanjan, 33, and his 60-member team have traveled 80,000 kilometers taking in 15 cities at home and abroad.

The project has cost 6 million yuan (around 920,000 U.S. dollars), including 870,000 yuan raised through crowd funding.

"Over 2,200 people donated money online. Most are not even from Xinjiang. They support me because they are interested in the stories of common Xinjiang people," said Kurbanjan.

Kurbanjan released the photo essay "I Am from Xinjiang" in 2014, which profiles 100 people from China's remote northwest corner who are pursuing their dreams across the country.

The photo essay has been translated into English, Arabic and Turkish.

Xinjiang is home to 47 ethnic groups including Han, Uygurs, Kazaks, Mongols and Tajiks.

Following a series of terrorist incidents inside and outside of Xinjiang in recent years, the region is hoping to change the way it is seen by the public.

"I want to show the real lives of Xinjiangers and introduce people to this diverse multicultural region," said Kurbanjan.

Kurbanjan is the son of a jade businessman in Hotan Prefecture, southern Xinjiang. His father had traveled the inland in the 1980s and always told his son that "only knowledge can change fate."

Kurbanjan's love of photography began in 1999. Planning to spend his savings of 3,000 yuan on a guitar to charm the girls at school, he was instead captivated by a camera he saw on his way to the guitar store.

Unlike the more traditional approach to promoting Xinjiang -- pictures of beautiful landscapes -- Kurbanjan is driven by human interest, and turned his lens to common Xinjiangers.

Kurbanjan said that the stories he tells have nothing to do with ethnicity, religion or region.

"In the documentary, 'Xinjiang' is only the background. I want to show human story. No matter where we are from -- Xinjiang, Beijing or Guangdong, we are all Chinese and share common happiness and pain related to our loves and dreams," he said. Endi