“Notice on Strengthening DV Management in Theater, Television and on the Internet” was officially issued on May 24th, 2004 by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television. The following is a translation of its main part:

As DV technology gradually becomes popular among social organizations and individuals, DV works have become a content source for video/audio programs on television and the internet. While most of these works are healthy and positive, some feature obscure or passive subject matters. Moreover, some individuals or organizations even send this kind of works to international film festivals, and cause negative impact. The Notice is to strengthen the management of DV broadcast.

1. TV stations, internet websites, and digital theaters must submit all DV works by individuals or social organizations to the censorship of “Radio and Television Management Regulation” and “Film Management Regulation” before their broadcast. Works against these regulations or with “unhealthy taste or problematic subject or direction” should be forbidden.  Works touching religion, ethnicity (minzu), or other sensitive social concerns must consult “relevant regional authorities” before their broadcast. Those with dubious concerns or possible negative social impact should not be aired.
2. The broadcast of DV works should follow the same regulations as those for films and TV programs. They must obtain “Permission to Broadcast Video/Audio Programs on the Internet” to go online, and follow “Film Management Regulations” to be screened in theaters. Anyone wishing to organize regional or national DV contests or festivals must report to the provincial Administration for Radio, Film, and TV.  Organization of international DV festivals must obtain the permission of  the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.
3. All DV works must obtain the “TV Drama Distribution Permission” or “Film Public Screening Permission” before participating in overseas film festivals or contests. Any individual or organization submitting DV works to overseas film festivals without the above permission, and causing negative impact, would face a three-year ban from the screening of their DV works on all domestic TV stations, internet websites or digital theaters. The individual or organization will be also banned from any film or TV production for three years.

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Liu Jiayin is one of the youngest and most promising independent filmmakers in the Digital Video movement in China.  She made her first feature Oxhide, a dGenerate title, when she was twenty-three, and served as writer, director, cinematographer, as well as a character in the three-character film.  Boldly transforming documentary into fiction, Liu Jiayin cast her parents and herself as fictionalized versions of themselves in an intimate portrait of a father’s leather bag business and a family’s anxiety over its decline.  Daily life in an impossibly cramped Beijing apartment takes on epic proportions in this intimate portrait, with unprecedented access of a working-class Chinese family.  In an review on Cinema Scope, Shelly Kraicer praised the film as “the most important Chinese film of the past several years–and one of the most astonishing recent films from any country.”

Oxhide II, Liu’s second feature, is the sequel to Oxhide and continues to follow the fate of the same business and the same family.  Using real time in the shoot, the film takes place when the family gathers to make and eat dumplings, a quintessential family ritual in China.  In an interview with Fanhall Films, Liu Jiayin mentioned that in Oxhide II, she reduces the dramatic quality of Oxhide in order to present a “diluted” (xishi) life.

Launched in July 2007, CinDi aims at discovering, presenting and supporting a new generation of digital films and filmmakers in Asia.  Chinese-language films covered half of this year’s program.  Xu Tong’s documentary Wheat Harvest won the top Red Chamelon Award, for which the Chinese independent director Lou Ye (director of Suzhou River and Summer Palace) served in the jury.  Lou’s film Spring Fever was the opening night film of the festival.

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SFGate Homepage featuring Ying Liang

What a nice surprise to see our very own Ying Liang, director of Taking Father Home and The Other Half, peering at us from the homepage of the San Francisco Chronicle‘s website.  And what an even nicer surprise to read the great article by Jeff Yang (formerly of A Magazine fame) tying dGenerate Films, and the films and filmmakers we represent, into the digital media revolution enabling independent voices from historically media-oppressed nations to be heard.

Yang and (we) agree we’ve come a long way from the government censorship of Tiananmen Square media coverage to today’s digitally-driven, people-powered media movement occurring in countries like China and Iran thanks to new technologies like Twitter, Facebook, and digital video.  Give it a read here.

For more details on Taking Father Home and The Other Half, visit our Catalog.

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