Ying Liang has issued the following statement regarding his film When Night Falls and the recent police threats made to him and his family regarding the film. The Chinese version of the statement can be seen here. 

Nothing about Cinema, Everything about Freedom

A Statement from Ying Liang

I’m experiencing quite a unique campaign for “film marketing”: every time when I finish a new film, I’d send some film stills and relevant materials to the media. But this time, what is in focus here is not the film itself. Most interview requests are not from the film-related media. It’s not that I don’t want to talk about other topics, but that the attention now is not directed to the quality of my new work.

For a filmmaker, the fact that the film has become a topic as such can’t be more embarrassing and unfortunate. What I have experienced and what I envision will happen in the future have made me to accept such a fact: “JUST CINEMA”, which indicates on the one hand that the power of cinema shouldn’t be over-evaluated, and on the other hand, cinema could achieve everything. I cannot totally agree with the latter opinion about the importance of cinema—- at least I don’t “simply”, “solely” or “absolutely” believe in such a statement. But there are people who insist that films could be so important that they would do everything to prove and guard this claim via public power and public instrument, which corners me, a negligible filmmaker, to a political or politicized predicament.

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These stills and trailer come courtesy of Ying Liang, whose film When Night Falls has become a target of much controversy after police accosted Ying’s family in their Shanghai home last month, seeking to buy the rights to the film from the Jeonju International Film Festival, who funded the work.

"When Night Falls" (dir. Ying Liang)

Since the initial threat made to Ying’s family and the prospect that he may be arrested if he returns to mainland China, Ying has returned to his teaching post in Hong Kong and has been keeping followers updated on the situation via his facebook and twitter.

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Ying Liang (photo credit: Wenjei Cheng)

Ying Liang, the director of Taking Father Home, Good Cats, and The Other Half and a leading figure in the world of independent Chinese cinema, has reportedly had police visit his family in Shanghai. Ying, who is in Hong Kong, has been threatened with arrest if he returns to China. The harassment began following a screening of his most recent narrative feature, When Night Falls at the Jeonju Film Festival in South Korea. Writing for The New Yorker, Richard Brody reports:

The film that got Ying in trouble is his latest, “When Night Falls,” which, according to [Malaysian filmmaker and blogger Edmund] Yeo, was shown in the Jeonju film festival, in South Korea. Yeo’s post has a wide range of details about the film and the case. The movie is based on the true story of a man who was “executed in 2008 for murdering six policemen with a knife in a Shanghai police station after being arrested and beaten for riding an unlicensed bicycle.”

Yeo quotes from Ying’s post on Facebook, which states that, after the film was shown in Jeonju, his family, in Shanghai, and his wife’s family, in Sichuan, were visited and intimidated by the Chinese police, who then tried “to buy the copyright of the film” in Korea for an extraordinarily high price. Ying adds that he returned to Hong Kong (where he is currently working) and learned that he would be arrested if he goes back to China.

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"Titianic 3D" in China (courtesy sina.com)

James Cameron, director of Avatar and Titanic, deep-sea explorer, and self-proclaimed “king of the world” was in Beijing earlier this week attending the Beijing International Film Festival. He spoke with Edward Wong of The New York Times and Gady Epstein of The Economist about his involvement in China, the numbers game of US-China co-productions, and the avalanche of Avatar the future may hold.

Wong, Epstein, and Cameron also discussed the censorship and quotas governing theatrical releases in China:

NYT: You must have had people talk to you to give you a briefing on the censorship process, about how it works or how it’s affected certain films here. Do you have any general thoughts on that?

Cameron: As an artist, I’m always against censorship. But censorship’s a reality, even in the U.S. We have a form of it there. We used to have the Hays commission. We now have the M.P.A.A. ratings system, which is basically a self-censorship process that prevents government from doing it. But the economic imperatives are that if you get an R rating, the studio won’t make a film that looks like it’s headed toward an R rating, and if you get a R you’ve got to cut it yourself to comply with PG-13. So it’s really just a form of censorship indirectly.”

NYT: Do you consider that the same as Chinese censorship?

Cameron: You’ve got a little more choice in it. It’s not as draconian. But I can’t be judgmental about another culture’s process. I don’t think that’s healthy.

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In spite of a recent S.E.C. investigation into possible bribes proffered by Hollywood studios seeking a lucrative foothold in the Chinese film industry, plans to ramp up China-US co-productions seem to be rolling full steam ahead. For perhaps the first time, the future of US-China co-production efforts has a name, albeit a slightly obvious one. It’s the age of “Chinawood.”

And pretty soon, it’ll have a face, too. According to Clifford Coonan of Variety, a $1.27 billion facility that will serve as a “co-production film financing platform, a co-production service center with post facilities, a facility for 3D conversion and a distribution and marketing center” is being constructed outside of Tianjin. The Chinawood behemoth, which is being built approximately a thirty-minute train ride outside central Beijing,

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According to a New York Times article by Edward Wyatt, Michael Cieply, and Brooke Barnes, the Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into whether or not, in the mad dash for Hollywood to capitalize on China’s developing production infrastructure and vast box office potential, American studio may have paid off Chinese officials to secure footing in the Chinese film industry.

The Times reports:

The inquiry creates a potential roadblock for the industry’s plans to expand in one of the world’s largest markets.

The S.E.C. investigation has so far focused on at least three studios, the person said, but all of the largest and some smaller studios have been contacted or made aware of the inquiry, according to the person, who has direct knowledge of the investigation but who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter could end up in court.

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