As someone who has watched the documentary movie 'Your Voice', it is difficult to ignore these numbers - Beijing has a population of over 21 million residents, with over 1700 operators rotating in three shifts 24 hours a day and answering more than 60000 calls per day. You must also remember the words spoken by the operator Liu Wan to his young colleague: 'We are operators, ordinary, but we have contributed to this city.'. At the 4th Chinese Documentary Film Awards Promotion Ceremony, Liu Wan and five other ordinary people from different positions took to the stage. They are operators, welders, Cantonese opera teachers, panda keepers, post-90s new farmers, and inheritors of intangible cultural heritage. They are ordinary people who work hard for their lives and are also the protagonists and audiences of documentary films. They stepped onto the big screen from their daily lives, and documentary images precipitated the flavor of their lives. The 4th Chinese Documentary Film Conference, hosted by the Central News Documentary Film Studio (Group), the China Film Association, and the Zhuhai Municipal Committee Propaganda Department, recently concluded. 23 works, including "Mountains and Rivers as Evidence," "Your Voice," "Father's Sky," "She is the Red Line Girl," "Aunt Hu's Garden," and "Lighttalker: Walking Alone in Antarctica," have been permanently collected by the "National Image Collection Project." Three institutions, including the China Film Archive, have been awarded the Special Contribution Documentary Film Institution of the Year. The 'National Album' of documentary films has added a new memory for the year 2025. Through the moments of this conference and the insights of the creators, we have gained a more intuitive understanding of how documentary films can preserve the lives and stories tempered by time, and safeguard the true warmth in the AI era. In the Yangshan Ancestral Hall in Beishan Ancient Village, Zhuhai, which has a history of nearly 200 years, the interplay of light and shadow creates a meaningful "dialogue" between modern imagery and ancient architectural landscapes. He Suliu, Deputy Minister of the Department of Journalism and Communication at Communication University of China and Director of the China Documentary Research Center, released the "2025 Annual Report on Chinese Documentary Films", defining the annual tone as "slow is a force, truly a kind of arrival". According to the statistics of He Suliu's research team, as of October 21st this year, there have been 22 documentary films released, with an average production cycle of 6.3 years. In an era where technology constantly liberates productivity and AI can generate images with just one click, many documentary filmmakers are still exchanging their long wait for the natural "flowering results" of their stories. The New Three Gorges witnessed the documentary director Yang Shuhua's 30-year follow-up filming; Director Pan Zhiqi of "Aunt Hu's Garden" spent 9 years accompanying and documenting the daily life of an ordinary elderly person; Director Yang Zhengnong of "Twilight: Homecoming" spent 8 years condensing the deep trust of many Taiwanese veterans who missed and longed to return home day and night... "When the tide of algorithms washes over the vision, documentary films, with a slow pace of several years of filming and more than 10 years of waiting, defend the defense line for 'reality'." He Suliu sighed and said that respect for time constitutes the most precious quality of documentary films and has become the entrance for audiences to regain trust in images. In the "slow" and "true", it accumulates the power to shake people's hearts. Truth is indeed a hot topic at this conference. Behind the repeated mention of the word 'real', there are challenges and reflections brought by new technologies such as AI, as well as the preservation and innovation of the creative rules and aesthetic paradigms of documentary films. In the Dream Theater of Zhuhai Xiangshanchang Building, the screening of the film "Chinese White Dolphin" deeply attracted the attention of the audience, especially children. Every stunning moment when the white dolphins leap out of the sea, the agility in their eyes, the texture of their skin, and even the splashing of water droplets when they breathe, make the audience feel like they are on a bumpy fishing boat on the desolate ocean, "face-to-face" with the white dolphins. And such a realistic immersion also comes from the 6-year tracking of the film director Yan Dong and his team. In order to let more people see the beauty of Chinese path to modernization, which is a harmonious coexistence between man and nature, they have been sailing again and again, taking time as a pen and dipping in the waves and light of the South China Sea. With the support of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Aquatic Wildlife Conservation Branch of the Chinese Wildlife Conservation Association, the the Pearl River Estuary Chinese White Dolphin National Nature Reserve, Sun Yat sen University and many other scientific research institutions and universities, they traveled as far as the United States, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Thailand, and completed hundreds of sea shots with a total voyage of more than 3600 nautical miles. Recalling the experience of waiting at sea for 16 consecutive days, the creators were filled with emotion: "On a quiet night, we could even hear the 'panting' sound of white dolphins surfacing for air. That experience of blending with nature made us understand the true meaning of documentary creation." "Truth must be the core value of documentary. ”Director Chen Qing shared during the "Focus Dialogue" segment of the conference that he looked back on his classic works and saw that "effort lies outside of poetry". The expression behind the content "connects the inside and outside of the screen infinitely, touches the audience, and nourishes the creators". What is the significance of spending so much time making a documentary about "fast" and "short" being so popular nowadays, who would watch it, and where are the audience? Chen Qing was once misunderstood. In June of this year, her work "Wu Dake" was screened during the 30th Shanghai Television Festival. The communication with the audience made her realize that whether it is a feature film or a documentary, the reason that makes you laugh, cry, or feel sad is always a moment in the story that coincides with your life experience. "There is no secret to filming except to use time to settle life experience." "Truth is a contract between the documentary film and the audience. ”At the "Focus Dialogue" session of the conference, the Film Digital Production Working Committee of the China Film Association discussed with Changjiang Haiyang that from the distant Stone Age to the current era of artificial intelligence, the transformation of tools has been driving the progress of human civilization. "We don't have to worry about machines becoming smarter, but we need to be wary of humans living like machines." He suggested that while embracing AI, it is worth considering what excessive use of AI may lose. Documentaries may lose their authentic expression, and artistic creation may also lose its artistic beauty due to the pursuit of convenience. On December 28, 1895, in a caf é in Paris, the Lumi è re brothers' "The Train Enters the Station" made the audience exclaim that the shadows on the wall had come to life. 130 years ago, documentary films marked the beginning of world film history. This train that entered the screen carried humanity towards a new era of light and shadow. Nowadays, movies are once again facing technology head-on. In the highlight moments of domestic documentary films in 2025, we see the expression of poetry, the empowerment of technology, the emotional weight injected into images by "stupid kung fu", and the spring colors injected into our spiritual world by the stories of many ordinary people. All of this makes us even more convinced that only true stories brewed over time can strike people's hearts and give us the strength to move forward. (New Society)