Yixiang and Carol met at an Independent Cinema Office Inclusion & Diversity Screening Day in Kendal, Cumbria, end September 2022. It was a match made in heaven: Yixiang an emerging Chinese film curator looking for opportunities, just graduating from the University of Edinburgh, Carol also an Edinburgh graduate, and a cinema operator with a background in Chinese studies who had always dreamt of hosting a Chinese film festival but never imagined she'd be able to find an audience for one. Yixiang visited Carol's cinema on 20 October 2022, assured her she would be able to curate a programme, secure an audience, and pull together a team of volunteers to plan and advertise the event, Carol took her at her word, and so the MINT Chinese Film Festival was born - three months later the first edition of the festival, February 2023, was a triumph! It was a lot of hard work, conducted mostly remotely from each other, with volunteers from both in and out of the UK, but it all came together - tremendous serendipity!