The concert edited visual scenes from around 1,000 hours of footage shot for the documentary, selecting those representing the river's natural beauty, historical culture, modern development, and the stories of several representative individuals.

During a seminar held in Beijing last month, the documentary's director Liu Liting reminisced about how the cameramen were dispatched in over 20 batches to Kashgar and areas along the banks of the Yarkand River in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region between July 2022 and earlier this year. Their journeys spanned snowcapped mountains, plateaus, valleys, oases, and deserts covering a distance of over 150,000 kilometers, capturing the stories of more than 30 people.

Zhu Hong, deputy secretary of the Party general branch of Shanghai Media Group's documentary center, said that The Yarkand River, along with the center's previous two documentaries about Kashgar, serve as a trilogy to showcase the authentic, multidimensional and comprehensive image of Xinjiang to the world, allowing a larger audience to understand China.