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Weekly New Releases - Documentary - China
By Bo Wang
An observational essay shot in the southwestern city of Chongqing, CHINA CONCERTO probes the uses of public spectacle in contemporary China.
Born and raised in Chongqing, filmmaker Bo Wang visited his hometown at the height of now-disgraced politician Bo Xilai's campaign to revive Mao-era "red culture", promoting among other things the public singing and dancing of Communist songs.
Alongside these participatory street performances, CHINA CONCERTO looks at images from the media, including Michelangelo Antonioni's Chung Kuo-China, and news media and advertising that address the capitalist present in forms reminiscent of the communist past.
The situation is explored in a narration modeled on Chris Marker's Sans Soleil, which is delivered by a woman with an ambiguous accent. Perched between an insider and outsider perspective, CHINA CONCERTO considers the persistence of totalitarian ideologies and images.
Reviews
"The remarkable collage and found footage editing, the insightful commentary on the absurdity of the power construction, and the allure of the spectacle, greatly facilitated by the female voiceover reading out a letter in undefined accented English, have earmarked Bo Wang as an exciting documentary filmmaker approaching sociopolitical subjects in contemporary China." - Ma Ran, Senses of Cinema
"Compactly and sensitively offers a Debordian analysis of spectacle and shows the complexity of China's transition into capitalism (as well as a great gunshot montage made from Chinese propaganda films that seems to be inspired by Christian Marclay)." - Tynan Kogane, Cinespect
"It is absolutely fascinating to watch CHINA CONCERTO apply the techniques of deconstruction to official state propaganda... It also offers trenchant analysis of the capitalism promoted by the state, a mutation described as "collective capitalism," in contrast to the western individualistic variety." - Joe Bendel, Libertas Film Magazine
DVD (Color) / 2012 / 50 minutes
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Directed by YU Guangyi
Yu Guangyi's stunning debut explores a grueling winter amongst loggers in Northeast China as they employ traditional practices through one last, fateful expedition. A lasting testament to disappearing traditions, Last Lumberjacks "is a fascinating glimpse at a rare way of life that few will ever witness" (Ain't It Cool News)
For generations, the lumberjacks of Heilongjiang, China have made their living harvesting timber amidst a barren, wintry landscape. These woodcutters confront the elements, living in makeshift cabins surrounded by snow and ice. hand tools, sleds and horses are the only technology they employ to drag massive trees down the perilous slopes of Black Bear Valley. At constant risk of injury and death, they attempt to appease the mountain gods with ancient rituals and sacrifices. Despite their heroic efforts to subsist, the deforestation caused by their decades-long customs my lead to their ultimate demise.
Reviews
"Pure, unadorned cinema verite... consistently astonishing." - Robert Koehler, Variety
"A privileged peek into some exceedingly harsh lives in a snow-bound corner of the remote Heilongjiang province" - Neil Young, Jigsaw Lounge
"Gives the docu-adventurism of Werner Herzog a run for his money." - Ben Cho, Moving Pictures Magazine
Awards
Winner, Jury Prize, Tokyo Filmex
Winner, Best Director and Jury Film Prize, Cinema Digital Seoul Film Festival
DVD (Color, Northeastern Chinese dialect with English subtitles) / 2012 / 90 minutes
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By JI Dan
On the outskirts of Beijing, two teenage girls from a migrant family struggle to earn the money to pay for their brother's schooling with little help from their troubled and eccentric parents.
Growing up in a rickety hut on a garbage-filled lot, Xia, Ling, and Gang recognize that a good education is their only possible ticket to a better life. Their older sister, who left school to begin working, has disappeared, likely kidnapped and sold into prostitution.
As migrants, they are prevented by China's hukou (residence permit) system from attending a free public school, and when the school that had provided them with scholarships closes, they are forced to look for new options. With very little money to their name, they place all their hopes in Gang, the older brother.
Their complicated home life doesn't make things any easier. Their alcoholic father and their mother are frequently at one another's throats, and do not seem to understand the gravity of their children's situation.
Director Ji Dan, one of China's preeminent female filmmakers, first met Xia, Ling, and Gang in 2004, while making a film about education in China, This intimate, patient portrait grew out of their close relationship over many years.
WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS at once explores the particular dynamics of one family and exposes the widespread difficulties faced by migrants living at the margins of Chinese society.
Reviews
"Ji Dan's film features some of the most engrossing storytelling in movies this year, and...some of the richest "characters" in recent memory." - Mubi Notebook
"Ji Dan's camera traces the tribulations of the family with an intensity that is unnerving...a shattering viewing experience." - Dan Edwards, Screening China
"The film captures their arguments with such intimacy that you wonder if director Ji Dan had worn an invisible cloak while filming." - Kevin B. Lee, RogerEbert.com
Award
Objectif d'or (Grand Prize), Millenium International Documentary Film Festival
DVD (Color) / 2012 / 144 minutes
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Directed by WANG Jiuliang
Photographer Wang Jiu-liang travels to more than 500 landfills, fearlessly documenting Beijing's unholy cycle of consumption through poignant observational visits with the scavengers who live and work in the dumps.
While China's economic ascent commands global attention, less light has been shed upon the monumental problem of waste spawned by a burgeoning population, booming industry, and insatiable urban growth.
Award-winning photographer Wang Jiuliang focuses his lens upon the grim spectacle of waste, excrement, detritus, and rubble unceremoniously piled upon the land surrounding the China's Olympic city, capital, and megalopolis, Beijing.
Eking out a dangerous living within are the scavengers, mostly migrant workers from the countryside, who struggle to uphold familial and cultural systems amid their occupation's Dickensian bleakness.
Wang renders the decimation of once-essential rivers and farmlands in the backdrop of gleaming high-speed trains, stadiums, and skyscrapers; the sinister cyclical pattern of construction's consumption and garbage, and moving images of the daily lives of scavengers who labor at their own risk.
Reviews
"Wang Jiuliang was the first to expose the city's little-known Seventh Ring Zone garbage dumps." - Liu Jingsong, Time
"An example of the power of cinematic reportage in China today." - Asian Educational Media Service
"Its focus is clear eyed and frank. The shots of people working-and living-in the often-illegal garbage dumps are routinely heartbreaking." - Planning Magazine
DVD (Color, Mandarin with English Subtitles) / 2011 / 72 minutes
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Directed by ZHAO Dayong
The troubled story of an underground church founded by Nigerian missionaries offers a rare glimpse inside an immigrant African community in China.
In Nigeria, Pastor Daniel Michael Enyeribe has a revelation to bring the word of God to China. He joins a booming community of African merchants who have settled in the southern city of Guangzhou and established the Royal Victory Church for both Africans and Chinese to worship. The church functions as the spiritual center for the ever-growing African trader community, who struggle with cultural, personal and financial challenges. After being raided by police enforcing strict laws regulating religious practice, Pastor Daniel flees to Hong Kong, where he uses video conferencing to lead his congregation from afar. His colleague Pastor Ignatius assumes daily management of the church, while struggling to support his Chinese wife and their young child.
With My Father's House, documentary filmmakers Zhao Dayong (Ghost Town, New York Film Festival) and David Bandurski capture a complex subculture thriving within a seemingly homogeneous society where immigrants and evangelical religion are kept from view.
DVD (Color) / 2011 / 77 minutes
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Directed by XU Tong
The colorful life of a countryside fortune teller provides a candid and deeply revelatory look at people living on the fringes of Chinese society.
Li Baicheng is a charismatic fortune teller who services a clientele of prostitutes and shadowy figures whose jobs, like his, are commonplace but technically illegal in China. He practices his ancient craft in a village near Beijing while taking care of his deaf and dumb wife Pearl, who he rescued from her family's mistreatment. Winter brings a police crackdown on both fortune tellers and prostitutes, forcing Li and Pearl into temporary exile, during which they visit their hometowns and confront old family demons. Li's humble story is punctuated with chapter headings reminiscent of Qing Dynasty popular fiction.
In Fortune Teller, Xu Tong continues his work documenting China's underclass, whose lives have gone largely unnoticed during the country's boom years. Xu spent a year filming nearly every detail of Li's daily existence and the ancient spiritual practices he administers.
Reviews "An exhaustive case history on the marginalization of the poor and disabled under Chinese capitalism" - Ronnie Scheib, Variety
"A complete immersion into their deceptively simple world in the countryside of northern China." - Ada Tseng, Asia Pacific Arts
Awards
Bright Future, Rotterdam International Film Festival
NETPAC Award for the Best Feature-length Film, Chongqing Independent Film Festival
Jury Prize, China Documentary Film Festival
Second Prize Feature Film, Hong Kong Chinese Documentary Festival
Dragons and Tigers Selection, Vancouver International Film Festival
China Independent Film Festival-Annual Top Ten Documentary Showcase
DVD (Color, Mandarin with English subtitles) / 2010 / 129 minutes
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Directed by XU Xin
In 1994, the oil-rich city of Karamay in Northwest China was the site of a horrible fire that killed nearly 300 schoolchildren. The students were performing for state officials and were told to stand by while the officials exited first. After the fire, the story was heavily censored in the Chinese state media. To this day, the families of Karamay have not been allowed to publicly mourn their children.
In KARAMAY, filmmaker Xu Xin helps a community break the silence nearly two decades after their tragedy. The film is structured around a series of first-person accounts from families, teachers and survivors, interspersed with rare archival footage. Each narrative represents a complete and self-contained story in which the subjects recount their reaction to the carnage and how it colored their view of nation, society, education, law, party institutions and human nature. The result is "a landmark in journalistic diligence and a dedicated act of commemoration and healing" (Michael Fox, SF Weekly).
Review
"Any future book on documentary film history will have to mark a place of honor for Xu Xin's KARAMAY." - Robert Koehler, Variety
Awards
Locarno Film Festival - Winner, Young Jury Prize
Asia Pacific Screen Awards - Best Documentary Nominated 2010
DVD (Black & White, Mandarin with English subtitles) / 2010 / 356 minutes
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Directed by LI Ning
For five grueling years, Li Ning documents his struggle to achieve success as an avant-garde artist while contending with the pressures of modern life in China. He is caught between two families: his wife, son and mother, whom he can barely support; and his enthusiastic but disorganized guerilla dance troupe. Li's chaotic life becomes inseparable from the act of taping it, as if his experiences can only make sense on screen.
Tape shatters documentary conventions, utilizing a variety of approaches, including guerilla documentary, experimental street video, even CGI. Tape captures a decade's worth of artistic aspirations and failures, while breaking new ground in individual expression in China.
Reviews
"A riveting portrait of an artist's attempts at expression and conflicts with societal norms." - Museum of Modern Art
"Li succeeds in revealing his own soul" - Rotterdam International Film Festival
Award
WINNER, Silver Digital Award, YunFest Documentary Festival
DVD (Color, Mandarin with English subtitles) / 2010 / 168 minutes
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Directed by DU Haibin
Du Haibin's award-winning documentary of the earthquake that devastated China's Sichuan province in 2008 explores how victims, citizens and government respond to a national tragedy. The Great Sichuan Earthquake took place at 14:28 on May 12, 2008, causing 70,000 deaths and 375,000 casualties. Days later, Du Haibin visited Sichuan to capture the devastation as well as the recovery effort. Survivors were reduced to salvaging destroyed pig farms in the mountains, selling scrap metal for pennies, and pillaging homes. Seven months later, as the nation celebrated Chinese New Year, Du returned to see how life had changed in the stricken villages. Sidestepping the highly controlled media tours, Du found scenes not seen on official TV, exposing the gap between the Party's promises and the disaster victims' reality.
Using a poetic, elliptical narrative structure, Du Haibin delivers a vision of human devastation that has been called, "fascinating" and "beautifully crafted" (Ronnie Scheib, Variety). Beyond describing the disaster and its consequences, Du also examines the prominence of media and consumerism in contemporary China, where tourists buy DVDs of horrific post-earthquake footage, souvenir albums of corpses, and pose for photos at sites of the highest death tolls. 1428 depicts a world in chaos, both material and moral.
Reviews
"Without judgment but with a deep compassion for their subjects, the filmmakers of 1428 bring us a myriad of individual stories of absurdity, confusion and grief." - Cherise Fong, CNN
"This is independent documentary at its most sophisticated." - Shelly Kraicer, Vancouver International Film Festival
Awards
LA Weekly's "Best of the Fest," Los Angeles Film Festival
Best Documentary, Venice International Film Festival 2009
DVD (Color, Mandarin & Sichuan dialect with English subtitles) / 2009 / 117 minutes
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Directed by HUANG Weikai
Huang Weikai's one-of-a-kind news documentary captures, with remarkable freedom, the anarchy, violence, and seething anxiety animating China's major cities today. As urbanization in China advances at a breakneck pace, Chinese cities teeter on the brink of mayhem. One man dances in the middle of traffic while another attempts to jump from a bridge before dozens of onlookers. Pigs run wild on a highway while dignitaries swim in a polluted river. Unshowable on China's heavily controlled television networks, Disorder reveals an emerging underground media, one that has the potential to truly capture the ground-level upheaval of Chinese society.
Huang Weikai collects footage from a dozen amateur videographers and weaves them into a unique symphony of urban social dysfunction. Huang shatters and reconstructs a world that's barely comprehensible, though with palpable energy - vibrant, dangerous, and terrifying.
Reviews
"Several [films] have caught the chaos of rapidly industrialized China, but none is as raw or terrifying as this." - Glenn Sumi, Now Toronto
"One of the most mesmerizing films I've seen in ages." - Hua Hsu, The Atlantic
DVD (Black & White, Mandarin with English subtitles) / 2009 / 58 minutes
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Directed by HU Jie
Condemned "Rightists," sentenced to 21 years of thought reform in the countryside, share harrowing first-person accounts of life in a Chinese labor camp.
In 1957, two hundred teachers, students, and cadres were labeled as "Rightists" for voicing criticism of the Communist Party and sent to the East Wind State Farm in southwest China. As part of China's disastrous Great Leap Forward, these inmates were forced to take part in ill-conceived deforestation, agricultural and industrial projects that led to wide-scale famine. Later they endured the Cultural Revolution when their camp was visited by large groups of "sent-down" youth from the cities. After 21 years of "remolding," the "Rightists" were finally "rehabilitated" in 1978 and allowed to leave in 1978.
THE EAST WIND STATE FARM re-examines the tragic events of Chinese modern history during the height of Maoist rule. Director Hu Jie collects dozens of extensive interviews with both inmates and staff who served through three decades of the camp's existence.
Review
"A film that should be seen by anybody interested by how a simple idea, propagated by an autocratic national leader, can lead a country to disaster." -Open City London Festival
DVD (Black & White, Mandarin with English subtitles) / 2009 / 101 minutes
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Directed by ZHOU Hao
Filmed with unprecedented access to a Communist Party leader, investigative filmmaker Zhou Hao offers a startlingly candid look inside Chinese politics at the local level.
As Chinese Communist Party secretary, Guo Yongchang was the most powerful man in his county, located in the rural inland province of Henan. Guo invited acclaimed documentary filmmaker Zhou Hao to record his final months in office. Through Zhou's lens, we see Guo work tirelessly to achieve his greatest desire: for Henan to match the affluence of booming coastal areas. Zhou also captures the sordid details of local-level politics in pursuit of growth: lavish parties with foreign investors, threats to local workers protesting unpaid wages, and offers of bribes and kickbacks.
Hailed by international press as an exceptional work of investigative filmmaking, The Transition Period captures the daily life of a Chinese official with incredible ground-level detail. With boastfully candid interviews from Guo and fly-on-the-wall coverage of closed-door dealings, Zhou lays bare the unsavory dynamics within China's top-down power structures. Penetrating in scope yet objective in its approach, The Transition Period reveals the conflicting forces shaping China's path to prosperity.
Reviews
"A rare, fascinating look at how the Chinese government operates." - The Associated Press
"The film stands out for its realistic and rare first hand records...recommended for any level of audience to get a glimpse of Chinese government officials' daily lives." - Educational Media Reviews Online
Award
Winner, Best Feature, China Documentary Film Festival
DVD (Color, Black & White, Mandarin & Henan dialect with English subtitles) / 2009 / 114 minutes
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Directed by YAN Yu
Yan Yu follows his groundbreaking documentary BEFORE THE FLOOD with this profile of the residents of Gongtan, a 1700-year-old village soon to be demolished by a hydroelectric dam project.
Gongtan, a historic village located on a tributary of the Yangtze, is about to be flooded by a dam project, forcing its residents to relocate. National imperatives displace local lives as authorities make decisions with little regard for village life. Ran Qingsong, a barber, and Ran Si, a cell-phone proprietor, rally the residents of Gongtan to stand against their impending displacement. But the will of the townspeople to save their land and homes soon wavers in the face of external pressure and internal suspicion.
Three years after BEFORE THE FLOOD generated global criticism towards the Three Gorges Dam Project, Yan Yu achieves intimate access again, this time to the Gongtan villagers as they protest official meetings and face off with construction workers eager to tear down their homes for a day's pay.
Review
"Yan Yu's long-term commitment to the subject matter (he has spent the last six years working on these films) shines through in this latest effort to chronicle the human cost of a project that has forced 1.4 million people to relocate." - Ling Woo Liu, Time Magazine
DVD (Color, Mandarin & Sichuan dialect with English Subtitles) / 2008 / 60 minutes
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Directed by Rachel Tejada
Six documentary shorts chronicle the changing state of China's independent, and underground, film scene.
Join on a month-long trip to post-Olympics China. We traveled from Shanghai to Nanjing to Beijing, and kept the cameras rolling. The result is unprecedented access into China's other film community, where writing, filming, and distribution don't always wait for government approval.
The series starts at the largest underground film festival in China, explores the spirit of independence in Beijing, tours art-film compounds, and discusses the future of Chinese cinema. Along the way, the series features the most important filmmakers, critics, producers, curators, and underground scenesters making films, their way, in China today.
DVD (Color) / 2008 / 18 minutes
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Directed by JIA Zhangke
China's greatest living filmmaker Jia Zhangke (Platform, The World) travels with acclaimed painter Liu Xiaodong from China to Thailand as they meet everyday workers in the throes of social turmoil.
Liu Xiaodong is well-known for his monumental canvases, particularly those inspired by Chinas Three Gorges Dam project. In DONG, Jia Zhangke visits Liu on the banks of Fengjie, a city about to be swallowed up by the Yangtze River. The area is in the process of being de-constructed by armies of shirtless male workers who form the subject of Liu's paintings. Liu and Jia next travel to Bangkok, where Liu paints Thai sex workers languishing in brothels. The two sets of paintings are united in their subjects' shared sense of malaise in the face of the dehumanizing labor afforded them.
Jia takes Liu's work as a point of inspiration for his own cinematic innovation. Produced as a companion piece to Still Life (Golden Lion, Venice Film Festival), DONG stands on its own as an aesthetically provocative exploration of the documentary form. Blessed with the director's signature compositional beauty and humanism, Jia's vision of China is concrete and explosive (Jean-Pierre Rehm, Cahiers du Cinema).
Reviews
"DONG exemplifies the cinematic mastery that has earned Jia the distinction of being "the planet's most excitingly original filmmaker" - Scott Foundas, LA Weekly
"HIGHLY RECOMMENDED" - Educational Media Reviews Online
Award
Golden Lion Award, Venice International Film Festival 2006
DVD (Color, Mandarin, Sichuan dialect & Thai) / 2008 / 70 minutes
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Directed by ZHAO Dayong
A remote village in southwest China is haunted by traces of its cultural past while its residents piece together their existence.
Zhiziluo is a town barely clinging to life. Tucked away in a rugged corner of Yunnan Province, Lisu and Nu minority villagers squat in the abandoned halls of this remote former Community county seat. Divided into three parts, this epic documentary takes an intimate look at its varied cast of characters, bringing audiences face to face with people left behind by China's new economy. A father-son duo of elderly preachers argues over the future of their village church. Two young lovers face a break-up over harsh financial realities. A twelve year-old boy, abandoned by his family, scavenges the hillside to feed himself.
Reviews "Directed with scrupulous attention to detail by Zhao Dayong" - Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
"One of the most important films to have emerged from the booming (but still underexplored) field of Chinese independent documentaries" - Dennis Lim, Moving Image Source
"Has a strong sense of historical consciousness, an eye for unique material, and a real sympathy for the people in the film and their tough lives" - Chris Berry, Goldsmiths University
DVD (Color, Mandarin, Nu & Lisu with English subtitles) / 2008 / 169 minutes
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Directed by Cui Zi'en
China's most prolific homosexual filmmaker presents a comprehensive historical account of the queer movement in modern China. QUEER CHINA, 'COMRADE' CHINA documents the changes and developments in Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender culture that have taken place in China over the last 80 years. Unlike any before, this film explores the historical milestones and ongoing advocacy efforts of the Chinese LGBT community. The film examines how shifting attitudes in law, media and education have transformed queer culture from being an unspeakable taboo to an accepted social identity. The film culminates with the submission of Dr. Li Yinhe's Same-sex Marriage Bill to the Legislative Affairs Commission of the National People's Congress in 2003, a major landmark event in the ongoing struggle for acceptance of queer identity in China.
Directed by Cui Zi'en, China's leading queer theorist, activist and scholar, the documentary includes rarely seen footage of the first ever appearance of gays and lesbians on State television, including Cui Zi'en himself. The film features exclusive interviews with over three dozen leading queer activists, scholars and filmmakers, including Shi Tou, Li Yinhe and Zhang Yuan. The opening night film of 2009's ShanghaiPRIDE, China's first ever LGBT pride festival, QUEER CHINA, 'COMRADE' CHINA is nothing less than the most authoritative account of queer cultural history in China to date.
Awards
Best Documentary, 24th Turino GLBT Film Festival
Best Documentary, Lisbon Gay and Lesbian Film Festival
DVD (Color, Mandarin with English subtitles) / 2008 / 60 minutes
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Directed by ZHOU Hao
An unusual relationship develops between an urban Chinese couple struggling with heroin and a filmmaker chronicling their addiction, in this provocative documentary on drug abuse, filmmaking and friendship.
For three years, filmmaker Zhou Hao chronicled the lives of Long and Jun, a couple struggling with heroin addiction in Guangzhou. Zhou captures Chinese junkie subculture, its members languishing in a slum flophouse, the equivalent of a modern day opium den. When Long is hospitalized after a failed robbery, Zhou speaks out from behind the camera to intervene. Still, Long and Jun persist, soon dealing drugs full-time to make ends meet. As the couple increasingly offers lies for answers, Zhou must confront his ethical responsibilities to them, as a friend and a documentarian.
USING probes a dark, cruel reality of contemporary Chinese society that has rarely been seen by any audience. Addicts disclose techniques for dealing with police, confronting sham suppliers and staying high throughout the day. Zhou's unflinching depiction of his friends' repeated attempts to quit blurs the line between filmmaker and subject, and raises provocative questions about the ways in which each uses the other.
DVD (Color, Mandarin with English subtitles) / 2008 / 105 minutes
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Directed by BAN Zhongyi
GAI SHANXI AND HER SISTERS tells the story of one woman's brutal ordeal as a "comfort woman" for the Japanese Army during World War II. Hou Dong-E, known as "Gai Shanxi," the fairest woman in China's Shanxi province, was one of the many women abducted from their villages to be sexually enslaved by Japanese soldiers stationed nearby. Fifty years later, she joined other women throughout Asia to seek justice and reparations, but she died before her demands were answered.
Chinese filmmaker Ban Zhongyi unearths Gai Shanxi's tragic life through the stories of the surviving women in the region. Ban also collects revelatory testimonies from former Japanese soldiers stationed in Shanxi during the war, breaking a decades-long silence over a dark chapter of China's history. Following one woman's heroic journey, GAI SHANXI AND HER SISTERS tells a universal story of female solidarity and survival.
DVD (Color, Mandarin, Japanese, & Shanxi dialect) / 2007 / 80 minutes
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Directed by JIAN Yi
SUPER, GIRLS! follows ten female teenagers on their quest to become instant superstars on China's biggest television show.
The Chinese equivalent of "American Idol," the "Super Girls Singing Contest" spawned an unprecedented pop culture phenomenon. Drawing over 400 million viewers, the show's runaway popularity spurred the Chinese government to ban it after only two seasons.
The film provides unparalleled, intimate access into the contestants' lives over several months. Through candid interviews and footage of nail-biting auditions and competitions, SUPER, GIRLS! offers a fascinating look inside what the Chinese media have dubbed "the Lost Generation" and their startling takes on sexuality and success in the new China.
Review
"As entertaining as it is revelatory" -Ronnie Scheib, Variety
DVD (Color, Mandarin with English subtitles) / 2007 / 73 minutes
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Directed by HU Jie
Pioneering filmmaker Hu Jie uncovers the tragic story of a teacher beaten to death by her students during the Cultural Revolution.
In 1966, the Cultural Revolution exploded throughout China, as Mao's Red Guards persecuted suspected Rightists. Bian Zhongyun, the vice principal of a prestigious school in Beijing, was beaten to death by her own students, becoming one of the first victims of the revolutionary violence that would engulf the entire nation.
In THOUGH I AM GONE, Hu draws upon photographs taken by Bian's husband, Wang Jingyao, whose impulse to document his wife's death makes him a spiritual forebear to Hu's fearless work. Hu also incorporates vivid accounts from surviving witnesses and archival footage to depict the deadly madness of the era.
"Packs a powerful punch in just over an hour...Director Hue Jie exploys a collage-like approach, interspersing archival footage and propaganda songs with present day interviews with Wang and other survivors of this tragic period of history." -Christopher Bourne, Twitch Film
Reviews
"A profoundly moving memorial to the victims of Mao's senseless political violence." -Dan Edwards, ReelTime Arts
DVD (Black & White, Mandarin with English subtitles) / 2007 / 68 minutes
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By Du Haibin
The program of economic reforms initiated in China in 1978 by Deng Xiaoping aimed to finance the modernization of the nation. But what Communist Party leaders called "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" looked suspiciously to many as a return to capitalism. Today, some three decades later, the results of those sweeping economic reforms have become plainly visible in a country increasingly divided between its rural and urban sectors.
Filmed in five different regions of China, UMBRELLA provides a telling look at the vast changes that have taken place in Chinese society, including a massive migration from the countryside to the cities, the rise of a prosperous new class of businesspeople, millions of new college graduates competing for a shrinking number of jobs, and the neglect of China's largest population group, its rural peasants.
Filmed in a purely observational style, with no narration or commentary, UMBRELLA shows the workaday life of young employees in a factory in Zhongshan, Guangdong Province, where they engage in monotonous, endlessly and rapidly repeated routines to manufacture umbrellas, for which they are paid a meager piece rate. At a massive shopping mall, the "World's Largest Small Commodity Market," in Yiwu, Zhejiang Province, those multicolored, multipatterned umbrellas are sold at much higher prices by wholesale merchants, who are among China's nouveaux riche.
The film also shows throngs of young people filling out applications at a job fair in Shanghai or undergoing physical drills and ideological regimentation at a provincial garrison of the People's Liberation Army. Finally, on a farm in Luoyang, Henan Province, we watch a group of elderly farmers struggle to salvage a premature harvest of drought-impacted wheat.
UMBRELLA makes sadly apparent the old adage about "the rich becoming richer and the poor becoming poorer," with China's peasant farmers, who are struggling to survive amidst the combined forces of globalization and the new Chinese economy, bearing the brunt of the country's growing pains.
Reviews
"Fascinating, if brutally depressing. It paints a decidedly different picture than the Chinese government would want you to believe." - Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid
"In creating a vast societal portrait through his focus on umbrellas, Du pulls off the rare feat of capturing the ephemeral." - Jennique Mason, San Francisco Bay Guardian
DVD (Color) / 2007 / 93 minutes
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Directed by CUI Zi'en
The mysterious closing of a Beijing school sends hundreds of migrant children on a desperate struggle to reclaim their right to an education.
The Yuanhai Migrants Children's School, which serves children of migrant laborers in Beijing, is shut down by city officials for reasons never made clear. The students and teachers manage to continue class, first by sneaking into the shuttered campus, then moving inside a ruined factory, and even setting up class on the street. One after another, these makeshift classrooms fail. Over the course of the semester, attendance drops from 720 to 16. Due to the dedication of the school staff and parents, the students persist in taking lessons, whether inside a decrepit minibus or in their teacher's tiny apartment.
Filmmaker and activist Cui Zi'en spent months depicting a social plight that threatens the tens of millions of migrant workers children in China. These students face both social and administrative prejudice due to their families' marginalized status. They are typically relegated to makeshift schools for migrants, with poor facilities and sporadic shutdowns by local officials. Following the personal journeys of students as they battle bureaucratic corruption for their right to learn, Cui exposes a crisis of social values in the wake of China's economic reforms.
DVD (Color, Mandarin with English subtitles) / 2007 / 94 minutes
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Directed by OU Ning
MEISHI STREET shows ordinary citizens taking a stand against the planned destruction of their homes for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In order to widen traffic routes for the Olympic Games, the Beijing Municipal Government orders the demolition of entire neighborhoods. Several evictees of Meishi Street, located next to Tiananmen Square, fight through endless red tape and the indifference of fellow citizens for the right to keep their homes. Given video cameras by the filmmakers, they shoot exclusive footage of the eviction process, adding vivid intimacy to their story.
Acclaimed at over two dozen museums and galleries around the world, MEISHI STREET, by renowned visual artist Ou Ning, works as both art and activism, calling worldwide attention to lives being demolished in the name of progress.
DVD / 2006 / 85 minutes
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Directed by SHU Haolun
Acclaimed filmmaker Shu Haolun explores the rich culture and history of his Shanghai neighborhood upon its impending destruction.
Dazhongli is one of Shanghai's oldest neighborhoods. Shu Haolun's family has lived there for three generations, enjoying a close-knit, communal way of life with their neighbors. Now Dazhongli and its surrounding neighborhoods are in the process of being demolished to make way for gleaming skyscrapers, towering apartment complexes and luxury shopping centers. In NOSTALGIA, Shu relays vivid details of growing up among narrow alleys and courtyards murmuring with neighborhood gossip, back when Shanghai was still closed to the world. While sharing a wealth of memories, Shu uses his camera to capture the everyday details of his home before they are wiped out forever.
NOSTALGIA is an ambitious cinematic essay that combines voice-over, interviews and re-enactments into a rich reflection of a city's past and present. In paying tribute to cultural traditions before they fade into history, Shu's work evokes a deeply moving feeling of nostalgia, "one that has universal appeal... grounded in humanist principles" (Thomas Podvin, That's Shanghai). NOSTALGIA connects one man's deeply intimate reflections with global societal issues.
Review
"The questions raised are being asked in cities around the world." - Reel China
Award
Winner, Best Documentary, Reel China Biennial
DVD (Color, Mandarin with English subtitles) / 2006 / 70 minutes
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Directed by ZHAO Dayong
STREET LIFE explores the hidden lives of homeless migrants who survive in the shadows of one of Shanghai's most historic and affluent streets.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of Chinese migrants are drawn to the allure of Shanghai, one of the world's most vibrant cities, with hopes of earning a decent living. Some end up in the dark alleys of Nanjing Road, Shanghai's largest shopping street, where they learn to hustle and scrape together any kind of living they can. One migrant, known as Black Skin, faces numerous pressures in his daily existence, including police violence. Black Skin's story intersects with those of fellow bottle collectors, enterprising thieves and even a young boy who was abandoned. Eventually Black Skin goes mad, dancing wildly through the crowds of Nanjing Road and in the doorways of luxury shops.
Director Zhao Dayong (GHOST TOWN, 2009 New York Film Festival) arrived in Shanghai in 2004 and began documenting the lives of itinerant Chinese using digital video. He saw their stories as overlooked portraits of the deep social impact caused by China's rapid economic growth. Zhao uses bold, exaggerated compositions in order to emphasize the relationship between his vagrant subjects and the city streets they inhabit. The result is a raw, vivid portrait of physical and psychological rootlessness. STREET LIFE reflects the way of life for thousands of forgotten people in one of the world's largest cities.
Awards
Jury Prize, Beijing Documentary Film Festival
City of Rome Prize, Rome Asiatica Film Mediale
DVD (Color, Mandarin with English subtitles) / 2006 / 98 minutes
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Directed by XU Xin
In this vivid portrait of China's musical heritage, Sichuan Opera performers strive to keep a centuries-old artform alive.
After thriving for 300 years, Sichuan Opera is an endangered art form. Having survived the Cultural Revolution, state-sponsored opera troupes now face extinction in the era of private enterprise. Opera master Li Baoting began his career at eight, but now performs pop songs with showgirls in cheap bars. His colleague Wang Bin performs in travelling tents, trying to resist the massive cultural changes threatening to wipe out this artform.
In TORCH TROUPES, acclaimed filmmaker Xu Xin (Karamay, Jury Prize, Locarno Film Festival) captures the painstaking preparations of Sichuan Opera performers and bears witness to the difficulties they face: an aging audience, the demolition of traditional teahouse venues, and career pressures to adopt modern dance or karaoke, or abandon the stage altogether. TORCH TROUPES offers an eye-opening overview of popular performance culture in contemporary China, and a poignant reflection of the struggle to preserve a cultural heritage in the face of widespread social transformation.
DVD (Color, Mandarin & Sichuan dialect with English subtitles) / 2006 / 110 minutes
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Directed by LI Yifan and YAN Yu
A landmark documentary following the residents of the historic city of Fengjie as they clash with the officials forcing them to evacuate their homes to make way for the world's largest dam.
China's Three Gorges Dam, the largest dam built on earth, has displaced millions of local residents whose towns and villages have been flooded. Fengjie, a city that has thrived along the Yangtze River for a thousand years, has only a few months left before it is completely submerged in water. Its citizens contend with administrators and each other over the residences in "New Fengjie," which are allocated via lottery and are far smaller than the homes they've worked a lifetime to build. Communist collectivism gives way to individual ruthlessness while the community battles furiously against bureaucratic mismanagement.
Shot over the course of two years, Before the Flood is a breathtaking achievement in verite-style documentary filmmaking. Directors Yan Yu and Li Yifan observe the death of a city, from streets teeming with life to a ghost town echoing with the sound of sledgehammers. A disaster movie rooted in reality, Before the Flood has won awards around the world and inspired Jia Zhangke's Still Life, also shot in Fengjie. This profound film shows the human effects of one of history's grandest social engineering projects that reflecting the loss of both home and heritage.
Awards
Wolfgang Staudte Prize, Berlin Film Festival
Humanitarian Prize, Hong Kong Film Festival
Grand Prize, Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival
Best Documentary Feature, Lisbon Int'l Documentary Film Festival
DVD (Color, Mandarin & Sichuan dialect with English Subtitles) / 2005 / 147 minutes
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Directed by XU Xin
A fascinating look into the inner workings of a Christian community in rural China, whose ways of life and worship are threatened by the world around them.
A lively community of Christians inhabit Fangshan, a remote rural town in Jiangsu Province. At the start of the millennium, a church was built there with support of local inhabitants' relatives from Taiwan. On Sundays, up to 900 people gather to worship, while spending most of their days maintaining a modest living as farmers. Their faith governs how they handle family conflicts, illnesses and other difficulties. Still, they must contend with constraining forces in their community, from ancient folk religious practices to laws forbidding evangelism.
With Fangshan Church, filmmaker Xu Xin (Karamay, Jury Prize, Locarno Film Festival) offers one of the most vivid portraits of Christian life in China to date. Filming over two years, Xu presents a richly detailed chronicle of religious practices, from weekly worship services to home prayer visits, as well as intimate interviews with individuals, filmed with a painterly eye. The result is a keenly observed reflection on the different forces - social, cultural and personal - that shape a religious community.
DVD (Color, Mandarin & Jiangsu dialect with English subtitles) / 2005 / 80 minutes
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Directed by HU Jie
This landmark documentary reveals the tragic life of a gifted young woman who was executed for speaking out during the height of Chairman Mao's rule.
Lin Zhao, a top student from Peking University, was imprisoned for defending students and leaders persecuted during Mao Zedong's Anti-Rightist Movement in the late 1950s. A gifted writer, Lin composed endless articles and poems from her cell. Forbidden to use pens, she wrote with a hairpin dipped in her own blood. In 1968 she was executed, her tragic life lost to the margins of history. Four decades later, filmmaker Hu Jie brings Lin's story to light and uncovers the details of this forgotten woman's fight for civil rights. .
Searching for Lin Zhao's Soul stands as a landmark in the Chinese independent documentary movement, an unprecedented work of investigation and recovery of modern China's suppressed memories. Director Hu Jie digs through artifacts and interviews first-hand witnesses to Lin's persecution, illuminating an era of political terror that sent millions to their deaths. The result is a lasting testament to a young woman's legacy of courage and conviction. In the words of Chinese writer Ran Yunfei, "Lin Zhao is the spiritual resource for all Chinese people and the legacy for the whole world."
Review
"Lin Zhao's story is about modern China's conscience and soul." - Robert Marquand, Christian Science Monitor
DVD (Color, Mandarin with English subtitles) / 2004 / 115 minutes
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Directed by OU Ning & CAO Fei
Armed with video cameras, twelve artists present a highly stylized portrait of SAN YUAN LI, a traditional village besieged by China's urban sprawl.
China's rapid modernization literally traps the village of San Yuan Li within the surrounding skyscrapers of Guangzhou, a city of 12 million people. The villagers move to a different rhythm, thriving on subsistence farming and traditional crafts. They resourcefully reinvent their traditional lifestyle by tending rice paddies on empty city lots and raising chickens on makeshift rooftop coops.
Directed by acclaimed visual artists Ou Ning and Cao Fei and commissioned by the Venice Biennale, SAN YUAN LI explores the modern paradox of China's economic growth and social marginalization.
DVD (Black & White) / 2003 / 45 minutes
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Directed by SHU Haolun
This powerful documentary explores the cruel realities of sweatshop labor and workplace injury in China, and one lawyer's mission to defend worker's rights.
Shenzhen, one of China's most prosperous cities, attracts thousands of migrant workers every year. These workers come with dreams of opportunity and success, but many find themselves in dangerous working conditions with no regulations to protect them. STRUGGLE tells the story of three workers who lost their limbs in factory accidents that are all too common in China.
The workers describe 17-hour shifts that leave them exhausted while operating heavy machinery, leading to disaster. Management denies responsibility for the accidents, often refusing to pay medical bills or compensate injured workers. But a crusading lawyer takes on the bosses, leading to a groundbreaking lawsuit that changes workplace regulations in China.
STRUGGLE examines one of China's most crucial problems underlying its booming economic production: the lack of worker's rights. With first-person interviews and rare courtroom footage, director Shu Haolun explains the exploitive policies and practices of government officials and factory bosses, and how lawyer Zhou Litai has taken up the cause of worker's rights. STRUGGLE reveals the harsh realities of sweatshop labor in China, and shows the inspirational efforts of those seeking justice and reform.
DVD (Color, Mandarin with English subtitles) / 2001 / 50 minutes
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