Following the success of Himalaya: Ladder to Paradise and Masters in Forbidden City, director Xiao Han is set to release his new feature-length documentary in domestic theaters on Dec 1.

Life is A Belief, a 106-minute documentary, features two ordinary people: Aheti, a 66-year-old saddle maker in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and Huang Zhongjian, a 26-year-old migrant worker in Foshan, in Guangdong province.

During past two years, Xiao and his team traveled over 100,000 kilometers to interview more than 100 people, and felt the two protagonists' stories are most emotional.

Their lives are quite different, but they have both struggled and strived in the face of hardship.

To pay off the big loan owed by his son,

Aheti used his craftmanship to make saddles to help pay off a loan taken by his son, but his nephew's illness cast a dark shadow on the family.

As for Huang, who has worked on Foshan’s property construction sites for over decade, his newborn was diagnosed with a heart condition.

How do the two families survive their misfortune?

Director Xiao, who alongside Huang and his wife attended the Beijing opening ceremony on Nov 28, says he and the crew experienced first-hand the tenacity and grit of those who they followed with their cameras.

"Their optimism and great sense of humor are very inspirational and touching,” says Xiao.