A documentary on student life at China's National Southwest Associated University was released on Saturday. 16 renowned alumni shared their stories in the film, with advancing screenings getting positive reviews.

In 1937, China's Peking University, Tsinghua University and Nankai University were temporarily merged and relocated the campus to Kunming, Yunnan Province. It took on the new name of the National Southwest Associated University, known as Lianda in Chinese.

16 Lianda alumni told their stories in a documentary called "One Day We Were Young," or "Jiu Ling Hou" in Chinese. They are renowned talents, including Yang Zhenning, Wang Xiji and Xu Yuanchong.

With an average age of more than 90, they paint a vivid picture of their youth, which was spent at the iconic institution in the history of Chinese education.

"We tell the story about a group of people, including Xu Yuanchong and Yang Zhenning. What was their state of being at the initial stage of the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression? The War disrupted their original plan of study and greatly affected them," Xu Bei, director of the documentary, told CGTN.

Although Lianda only operated for eight years in Kunming, it produced a large number of world-renowned talents, including two Nobel Prize winners, eight winners of the "Two Bombs and One Satellite" Merit Medals, and more than 170 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Their achievements and consistent pursuit of knowledge touched the director, and she wants people, especially college students, to watch the film. 

"I myself feel that I have learned a great deal from them. First of all, I'm impressed by their knowledge and spirit," said Xu, "I think it is the nourishment that the best university can give students, because I think the Southwest Associated University was a good project, where the East met the West."

In addition, Xu found out these scholars are very sincere, and that they are full of goodwill to others. "And then there's the spirit of lifelong learning, and they all work and study well into their 90s and their 100s, and that's very rare," said the director.

The documentary has toured over 20 universities. Liu Yaguang is one of viewers in Beijing. He said: "From this film I realized that for young people to study, we should not be constrained by a very specialized field, but think more broadly about things related to the current social circumstances."

The film hit cinemas nationwide on Saturday.