Shu Haolun's "No. 89 Shimen Road" won the top prize at CIFF, but wasn't shown on Awards Night.

The Nanjing-based China Independent Film Festival (28 October-1 November 2011), unlike the Beijing Independent Film Festival described previously, benefited from a substantial degree of official and semi-official “cover”. Unlike BIFF, there is a certain amount of practical compromise with official bodies and officially approved cinema: purity isn’t such an issue.  Co-sponsors include the Nanjing University School of Journalism and Communication, The Communication University of China (Nanjing) and the RCM Museum of Modern Art. The second day of CIFF includes a forum attended by local propaganda department officials. A sidebar of the festival (nicknamed the “Longbiao Section” for the dragon-headed insignia that appears at the beginning of all officially approved film prints in China) included screenings in a luxurious commercial cinema of several films that that are strictly speaking non-independent (i.e. censor-approved) but are made in a spirit of independence. These films would not appear at BIFF, for example, but might show later in official venues like Beijing’s Broadway Cinematheque MOMA, where approved “arthouse cinema” (i.e. non-commercial) finds a refuge in Beijing.

The core of CIFF, though, consists of four sections of new “unapproved” films: the feature film competition; a carefully curated set of documentary features — split in two, a “Top 10 Documentaries of the Year” section, and a set of new documentaries (the next ten best?); 2 sets of short fiction films; and two programmes of experimental films. Other sidebars included four films from Caochangdi Workstation’s Folk Memory Project and a Goethe Institute-sponsored set of films from the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival.

Pema Tseden's "Old Dog" was screened in place of "No. 89 Shimen Road"

As with BIFF, CIFF’s selection of new features was problematic: there has been a worrying dearth of excellent, festival-worthy new Chinese indie fiction features the past year and a half (with a few notable exceptions: in particular a mini flowering of Tibetan language features led by Pema Tseden and Sonthar Gyal). And I think the awards reflected this. The jury (directors Wu Wenguang & Zhang Ming, NYU professor Angela Zito, novelist Sun Ganlu, and curator/critic Li Xianting) gave their Grand Prize to Shanghai director Shu Haolun’s bold first fiction feature No. 89 Shimen Road. That film’s direct evocation of the June 4 1989 Tiananmen protest movement, however, may have caused a slight programming hitch. The winning competition film is usually given a final prominent screening following the awards ceremony. This time, CIFF replaced it, for “technical reasons”, with one of the Jury Prize winners: Pema Tseden’s very fine Old Dog. The other jury prize winner was Wang Chao’s welcome return to independent filmmaking Celestial Kingdom, a rather conceptual work of fiction infused with a kind of cold moral fury at Chinese society’s moral collapse.

Though there were some stunning experimental features (expect to see a few at prominent international film festivals coming soon), most of the action and controversy revolved around the new documentaries. This is where heart and soul of Chinese indie filmmaking lives today. There is what one could call a mainstream school of Chinese “realistic” documentaries — let’s call them ultra-realistic docs — that dominates today, both in film festivals in China and overseas, and that preoccupies the academic, theoretical, critical discussion that has flourished around Chinese documentary filmmaking.

Briefly (and I know I’m oversimplifying, but I plan to write more extensively on this later), this school is derived from direct cinema, under the aegis of the cinemas of Frederick Wiseman and Ogawa Shinsuke. These filmmakers strive for a seemingly transparent, so-called direct representation of “truth” and “reality”, unmediated by authorial (i.e subjective) intervention. Their inspiration can be historical, archival or ethnographic, with filmmakers immersing themselves for months or even years in the lives of their subjects, then emerging with often very long documentaries that transform their experiences into cinema with minimal “subjective” distortions. Issues of ethics then emerge: the relative positions of the filmmaker and subject (are filmmakers intellectuals looking down on grassroots subjects from a position of “superiority”?); issues of consent and (mutual, explicit, endorsed) exploitation; the ethics of representation of the other; and the rights of audiences, directors, subjects, and so-called experts to challenge all these things. A refreshingly different school, recently activated in Chinese indie doc circles and in evidence at this year’s CIFF, takes documentaries as strictly personal, autobiographical, even prima facie solipsistic texts, and films and edits accordingly, highlighting the presence of the filmmaker and the interaction between what’s in front of and who’s behind the camera. This obviates a host of problems outlined above, but introduces its own very different issues of aesthetic criteria, social relevance, and moral obligation.

The filmmakers' declaration posted at CIFF (photo: Cinemascope Magazine)

These issues boiled over in a striking way at CIFF. As I reported in Cinemascope, a seminar on documentary ethics, attended by theoreticians, critics, and filmmakers, drew the lines, as directors struck back (verbally, though forcefully) at the academics for attempting to control the discourse around their films. The next day, we had something like a dazibao moment: dazibao are literally “big character posters”, like the kind Chinese Maoist youth used to use to denounce their counterrevolutionary elders 40 years ago or, perhaps more to the point, like the posters that appeared denouncing lack of democratic progress at the Democracy Wall during the so-called “Beijing Spring” in late December 1978. Many of the documentary directors, along with festival staff and audience members, worked to produce a two page declaration rebutting what they saw as an unwelcome academic hegemony over their art. The manifesto (titled Shamans · Animals) was posted outside the closing ceremony hall and distributed by hand (I translated the document into English at Cinemascope). And the controversy continues: someone else will have to summarize the final chapter of this continuing debate. Those of us attending the CIFF closing ceremony cum late-night party could see, through a glass door, an intense meeting taking place in an adjacent room, where the filmmakers and critics were still at it, continuing to hash out and perhaps resolve some of their differences.

It’s striking to see how critically engaged cinematic discourse is with Chinese politics and culture at the present moment: when nervous, insecure officials feel the need to interfere; and where practitioners and analysts engage with anger and passion. After just a month watching movies in China, it’s hard to imagine a national cinema where the stakes are higher right now.

Relevant Classroom Use

In the recently closed 16th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), which ran from October 6 to 14, 2011, two independent Chinese productions made to the list of 30 finalists in the Asian Project Market (APM). They were Late August by YANG Heng (director of Betelnut, distributed by dGenerate) and Du, Zooey, and Ma by Robin WENG Shouming (director of Fujian Blue, distributed by dGenerate).

The Asian Project Market of BIFF, previously known as the Pusan Promotion Plan (PPP), is a venue for promising Asian directors and producers to get help and support from industrial representatives from all over the world. This year, 27 of the 30 finalists competed for six cash awards that ranged from 8,717USD (Lotte Award and PanStar Cruise Award) to 22,777USD (Göteborg Film Festival Fund from Sweden); 7 films won. See list.

This year, 307 films in 11 categories were screened at BIFF this year, with 134 world or international premieres. Below is a complete list of 22 Chinese films screened at the festival.

Gala Presentation

This section is reserved for renowned Asian directors.

Life Without Principle by Johnnie TO
Wu Xia by Peter CHAN

A Window on Asian Cinema

This section is not a competition section of BIFF.

11 Flowers by WANG Xiaoshuai
Celestial Kingdom by WANG Chao
Here, There by LU Sheng
Inseparable by Dayyan ENG
Mr. Tree by HAN Jie
The Sword Identity by XU Haofeng

New Currents

This section shows the first or second film by an up-and-coming Asian director. Films in the section are considered for a $30,000 prize.

Lost in Mountain by GAO Zipeng

Wide Angle

This section is divided into competition and non-competition units. Shorts and documentaries in the competition units are considered for the Sonje Awards and the BIFF Mecenat Awards respectively. Korean shorts in the competition units are also considered for the Busan Cinephile Award.

Documentary Competition
The Vanishing Spring Light (China/Canada) by YU Xun
Documentary Showcase
Yulu by WEI Tie, TAN Chui Mui, JIA Zhangke, CHEN Tao, CHEN Zhizheng, SONG Fang, WANG Zizhao
Animation Showcase
(3D) Legend of a Rabbit by SUN Lijun

Special Program in Focus:

Special Focus on Yonfan, A Touch of Sensuality
7 films by Yonfai: A Certain Romance (1984), Bishonen (1998), Color Blossoms (2004), Double Fixation (1987), In Between (1994), Peony Pavilion (2001), and Promising Miss Bowie (1990).

Special Focus on Asian Western: Men of the East
Let the Bullets Fly by JIANG Wen

Special Screening
The 14 Amazons by Kang CHENG

Midnight Passion

This is not a competition section of BIFF. Films selected in this section are screened at night for festival attendees.

The Sorcerer and the White Snake by Tony CHING Siu Tung

Lastly, Hong Kong director Tsui Hark is the Asian Filmmaker of the Year at BIFF.

Relevant Classroom Use

The Sixth Beijing Independent Film Festival (BIFF) has had to switch venues twice following pressure by the police, obliging the organisers to inform festival-goers of the last-minute location changes.

BIFF, now in its sixth year, is showing over 50 cutting-edge feature films, documentaries, experimental works and animations in Songzhuang, a village on the outskirts of Beijing which is known as a hub for its avant-garde artistic community. The meddling by the authorities – while stopping short of shutting down the festival itself – has thrown into the spotlight the heavy scrutiny that the independent arts face in China by the one-party state.

Karin Chien, founder of dGenerate Films, a New York-based distribution company that specialises in distributing independent Chinese film to audiences worldwide, says she that was not surprised by the most recent interference from the authorities.

“Authorities caused BIFF to change venues twice, to the point where screenings were being held in the festival’s headquarters,” Chien, who was present at the launch event, wrote to IPS in an email. ‘So when the police showed up to stop the first screening, it wasn’t a surprise. The documentary version of BIFF was canceled by the authorities in May, so I suppose we were all holding our breath to see what would happen this time.”

Read the full report at IPS

Click through to access the full program of The 6^th Beijing Independent Film Festival

(compiled by Genevieve Carmel)

General Program Curator: Hao Jian

Art Director: Wang Hongwei

General Programmers: Hao Jian, Gan Lin, Liu Yonghong, Wang Hongwei

Forum Hosts: Zhu Rikun, Hao Jian, Yang Yang

Fiction

HELP Hu Yichuan

ADULT MAGAZINE Zhao Xianzu

WINTER SPRING Chen Zhimin

THE SENTIMENTAL ANIMAL Wu Quan

HUAN HUAN Song Chuan

THE DITCH Wang Bing

LOST IN THE MIRROR Ruoban

TOO MUCH CO² Lai Jinkun

HEAT WAVE Qi Zhonghua

EMBRACING NOT SLEEP YongLee

THE TOWER OF IMMORALITY Zhao Kai

FOLLOW THE SHADOW Xiao Han

BLIND WHITE  Sun Shi

THE HEDGEHOG Shi Nuo

FOUR COWARDS Mai Mai

TWENTY DOLLARS Lam See Chit

FLYING TRAIN He Suosi

TRIBULUS TERRESTRIS Deng Li

MY FATHER Li Pisen

Documentary  (Programmed by Zhu Rikun and Wang Hongwei)

25 WORDS Liu Shen

APUDA He Yuan

NO COUNTRY FOR PRIVATE HOUSES He Liren

DOCUMENTARY

PATHWAY Xu Xin

THE NEXT LIFE Fan Jian

BEIJING BESIEGED BY WASTE Wang Jiu-liang

SHATTERED Xu Tong

A VILLAGE WITH TWO Zha Xiaoyuan

THE HULLING RICE RECORD Gui Shuzhong

THE COLD WINTER Zheng Kuo

THE OPAQUE GOD Gu Tao and Zhou Yu

THE JOURNEY OF POETRY AND DISEASE Geng Jun

GAS Lin Xin
WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS Ji Dan

THE UNFINISHED HISTORY OF LIFE Cong Feng

MOTHER WANG PEIYING Hu Jie

PORTABLE OCCUPATION Xiao Ben

5+5 Xu Xing and Andrea Cavazzuti

FADING REFLECTIONS Sha Qing

MY MOTHER’S RHAPSODY Qiu Jiongjiong

SOLEMN TRANQUILITY Zhang Zanbo

A VIEW OUT OF MY WINDOW Yu Wenhao

MOST BEAUTIFUL DAY Yu Wenhao

Experimental (Programmed by Zhang Haitao)

A CERTAIN PERSON ON A CERTAIN DAY AT A CERTAIN TIME AT 798 ART DISTRICT Bai Budan

ARCHITECTURE Xu Ruotao

STRUCTURE OF CRYSTAL II Zhao Yu

THE EMPTY ROOM Hu Yangyi

A WORM Han Qiang

I TRAVEL THROUGH TIME TO MEET YOU AGAIN Yang Zhengfan

YOU SAVED ME ON YOUR HAND Chang Po-Yang

DISAPPEARING IN GREEN GRASS, WILD GRASS, AND DUCKWEED Zhang Zanbo

DUST Peng Xiang

AROMA Peng Xiang

Animation (Programmed by Wang Bo)

CITY INTRODUCTION Wang Zhan

THE BLUE HOUSE Gao Siyang and Yang Tianheng

FACE Zhang Tongyue

THE WALL Gu Zhihai

APPLE PICKING Chai Mi

TOGETHER FOREVER Ma Manjie

CHASING Wu Chao

African Section (Programmed by Gertjan Zuilhof and Zhu Rikun)

LI XIA’S SALON Omelga Mthiyane

SNAKE Samson ‘Xenson’ Ssenkaaba

FIRE FLY Caroline Kamya

ZUT! Amour Sauveur Memy

Retrospective Section about Satoh Makoto (Programmed by Zhu Rikun and Hiroki Nakayama)

LIVING ON THE RIVER AGANO Satoh Makoto

MEMORIES OF AGANO Satoh Makoto

OUT OF PLACE MEMORIES OF EDWARD SAID Satoh Makoto

Special Screening Section

CELESTIAL KINGDOM Wang Chao

Relevant Classroom Use

"No. 89 Shimen Road" director Shu Haolun

Congratulations to writer-director Shu Haolun, whose new film No. 89 Shimen Road just won the Best Asian Film Award (NETPAC Award) from 27th Warsaw International Film Festival.

In giving the award to Shu, the NETPAC jury commented on their decision:

The 27th WFF NETPAC Jury gives out the award to a film that poignantly depicts the struggle of a country confronted with a new order. It is also a personal and touching view of a world that no longer exist.

No. 89 Shimen Road is available through dGenerate Films. It will screen in Chicago next month as part of an 11-film series on Chinese independent cinema hosted by Doc Films.

Shu’s previous films Struggle and Nostalgia are also available through dGenerate.

Relevant Classroom Use

Zhou Hao presents his film "The Transition Period" at the China Documentary Festival in Hong Kong (photo: Associated Press)

The 2011 Chinese Documentary Festival in Hong Kong concluded earlier this month with awards given to The Transition Period by Zhou Hao and One Day in May by Ma Zhandong. The Transition Period will be distributed later this year by dGenerate, which already distributes one of Zhou’s earlier films, Using.

In a report on the festival for the Associated Press, Min Lee describes The Transition Period as “a rare, fascinating look at how the Chinese government operates:”

Guo Yongchang, who is currently serving a seven-year prison term for accepting bribes of 2 million Chinese yuan ($310,000), is shown discussing how to split tax revenue with lower-level officials, meeting with constituents as well as smearing birthday cake onto the face of an American businessman and wining and dining with Taiwanese businessmen in another drunken episode. A secretly recorded sound section shows Guo ordering an aide to return certain bribes.

Zhou said he met Guo at a dinner and the former official quickly agreed to be filmed. He said he got full access — although avoided shooting Guo’s family life. Guo has seen the documentary — minus the secretly taped section — and didn’t object, Zhou said.

When asked if he worried if such a film could cause trouble for him with the authorities, Zhou responded: “my understanding is that you can basically film everything you want to film. The key question is whether you want to shoot something. If you want to shoot something, you can definitely do it.”

In the context of recent troubles experienced by socially critical artists such as Ai Weiwei, Zhou said that he and other artists have benefitted from the sacrifices made by such figures. “There are many people taking the heat for us … What should we be afraid of?” Zhou said. Zhou also cited the example of  Xu Xin, whose six-hour Karamay investigates a heavily censored story about 300 children who died in a fire while performing for government officials.

Fellow director Ma Zhandong agreed with Zhou’s position: “If you like what you are doing, you can overcome the hurdles.” Ma’s film One Day in May, which won the festival’s top prize, follows a family’s recovery from the deadly 2008 earthquake in southwestern Sichuan conference. Its unflinching depiction of the social and economic fallout from the earthquake recalls that of the award-winning film 1428 by Du Haibin, which is part of the dGenerate catalog.

Read the full version of the Associated Press report.

Relevant Classroom Use

I previously wrote here about the cancellation of the 2011 Beijing Independent Documentary Film Festival (DOChina) at Songzhuang. As a companion piece, let’s take a look at the other important film event scheduled for roughly the same time in Beijing, the First Beijing International Film Festival (Di yi jie Beijing guoji dianying ji), which took place from April 23 to 28, 2011.

The BJIFF Opening Gala was more than spectacular, as far as these things go. An obviously huge budget was expended on large scale staged showpieces, set up for what was reported to be a “live television broadcast” managed by CCTV3, in Beijing’s most spectacular theatre, the Opera Hall of National Center for the Performing Arts just beside the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square.

CCTV news clip Here.

It makes sense that the fledgling BJIFF would shower a large part of its apparently substantial resources on this splashy opening show. The festival seems to be about scale, civic and national power, and about positioning Beijing — institutionally, internationally, industrially, and in the media’s frame of reference — as the centre of China’s visible film culture. That Shanghai has been host to China’s most prominent long-running film fest, in fact the only one with a real international profile, was an impediment to this image Beijing is eager to project. Hence the BJIFF, tasked to reposition in “film festival” terms Beijing as the acknowledged and unrivaled centre of Chinese cinema.

Chairpersons of International Film Festivals Meet in 1st BJIFF (image: Beijing International Film Festival)

This large-scale PR project (for that’s what it is, fundamentally: a state power-driven PR demonstration on a giant scale) necessitates large, splashy, visible, easily media-tized events, with both domestic and international impact. So, actual film screenings, the core of a film festival’s mission, were relegated in the BJIFF to a sort of barely publicized sideshow (during the festival it was impossible to find English-language information on the film schedule, and Chinese language info was incomplete and only available piecemeal online). Decorative festival side bars included an under-populated “film market” and “project market”, and various hard- or impossible-to-get-into directors’ talks and festival seminars.

But a gala opening ceremony, with red carpet, TV coverage, stars, international guests: that was easy to find. “Stars Shining in Beijing” was the official name of the opening ceremony on the evening of April 23rd. I think the result fully fleshed out its rather complex mission statement, which I quote for you from the English official programme guide: “Let us make the Beijing International Film Festival a world-class cultural extravaganza with Chinese characteristics and with a Beijing flavor!”

The Chinese government loves representational galas, high profile stunning propaganda events to symbolize and define its main themes and policies. The 2008 Olympics and 2010 Shanghai World Expo are the largest scale  recent examples. But look also at the way Beijing’s recent star architecture projects — Rem Koolhas’s perpetually-under-construction CCTV headquarters, Stephen Holl’s Lynked Hybrid complex, Zaha Hadid’s Galaxy SOHO –  are somehow supposed to symbolize the progressiveness of Beijing’s new contemporary architecture. In fact, they are islands of stunning design that mask the reality Beijing’s destructively and dispiritingly mediocre new building stock.

Marco Muller (image: Beijing International Film Festival)

So, one can see how the Opening Gala is designed to represent the BJIFF in propaganda, media, and in official tallies of how the government’s money was spent and corresponding prestige purchased. “Beijing Welcomes You”. We were treated to surprisingly short speeches by the Mayor of Beijing Guo Jinlong and the director of SARFT (the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television) Cai Fuchao, and then to a somewhat longer paean to the glories of Beijing and Chinese cinema by Venice International Film Festival Director Marco Müller. Müller with his usual bilingual flair, hit all the appropriate notes when it comes to articulating harmonious official cooperation with China.

Politburo heavyweight and Beijing Communist Party Head Liu Qi gave us an Olympic Games style “I declare the 1st annual BJIFF open”. He is in fact the former President of the Beijing Olympic Games Organizing Committee, which I think serves to clarify the way the 2008 Games and the BJIFF function in parallel kinds of ways.

It is notable that the Opening Gala’s complement of high officials far outranked the deputy mayors and vice-heads of SARFT who annually grace the rival Shanghai International Film Festival’s opening ceremonies. I’ve never seen Politburo members at a film event before. Their presence signals not only the weight that State and Party power is placing behind the BJIFF, but also suggests how closely said State and Party are watching over BJIFF as a core event in China’s projection of its “soft power” around the world.

One of the most distinctive elements of the evening’s proceedings was the parade of foreign film festival heads who marched up to the stage: Venice, Toronto, Pusan, Sundance, Tokyo, Thessaloniki, the list of festival directors goes on and on. These visiting eminences (was anyone reminded of tribute state potentates arriving in Qing dynasty Beijing to make ritual acknowledgement of the Emperor of the Middle Kingdom’s power and prestige?) received flowers from charming plaid-skirted children and the audience’s enthusiastic applause, as their presence seemingly ratified the international standing and importance of BJIFF for local and national audiences.

Then the fun began. A giant dance number attempted to mix actors in full Beijing Opera regalia with some sort of hospital orderly-style white-garbed breakdancing dervishes: evidently an attempt to show the harmonious relationship between Beijing culture then and now.

Star time: BJIFF’s two unexpectedly accurately named “image ambassadors”, Zhang Ziyi and Jackie Chan (both chosen, presumably, as much for their high recognizability factor in non-Chinese entertainment markets as for their status in current Chinese movie culture) arrived onstage for some awkward and surprisingly unrehearsed chit-chat. This was followed by a second large scale dance spectacular whose fantasy representation of Jiangnan (southern) China culture (take that, Shanghai) presumably balanced the “hard” northern Beijing opener: languidly floating diaphanously-begowned fairy maidens floating on clouds of Buddhist fairy-land stage smoke. Actually rather elegant, I have to admit.

The Opening Gala's "Italian Orchestra" playing themes from classic films

An even more elaborate staged song and dance involved a giant mechanical floating bridge that opened, robot-transformer style, into what looked like a giant space alien-toad that threatened to eat up not only the singer perched precariously on top but also the entire National Performing Arts Centre and its inhabitants. (I believe the intention was to represent a vast, sublime mountain scape, but believe me, the giant toad image stuck). More money flowed onto the stage in the form of the “Italian Film Orchestra”, an entire symphony orchestra flown in from Europe to play a medley of Western film music classics (more John Williams/Henry Mancini than Sergei Prokofiev).

A selection of famous Chinese directors and actors was paraded across the stage in a spurious celebration of “awards” to “Excellent Chinese films in External Trade in 2010”. This was clearly designed as an excuse to put film celebrities like John Woo, Leon Lai, Wang Xueqi, Feng Xiaogang, Xu Fan, Zhang Jingchu, and Wang Xueqi on official display.

No Chinese national arts gala event would be complete without a horrifically picturesque “ethnic minorities harmoniously dance to power” number. Here, dancers clad in every imaginable ‘colorfully exotic’ kind of garb lip-synched to a weirdly atavistic drum beat. I can only guess that the choreographers took their inspiration from the Stravinsky/Nijinsky primitive-esque Sacre du printemps via old Hollywood oogah oogah “savage native” dance numbers. At least the music and dance, in a weirdly naked way, articulated the “civilized centre’s” actual attitude towards its decorative minority subjects.

After which, as a touching farewell, Olympic ballad crooner Liu Huan favored us with a BJIFF tribute song.

I look forward to the 2nd annual BJIFF: may its mission statement favor a little more culture, a lot more films, a little less “world-class”, and a lot less “cultural extravaganza”. And keep the local flavor: Beijing always welcomes you.

Relevant Classroom Use

Since the story made various international news outlets late last month, you may already have heard of the cancellation of this year’s DOChina, the independent documentary film festival scheduled for May 1 to May 7 in Songzhuang, an artists’ village in the suburb of Beijing. Well, it was cancelled, but a number of us still made the one and a half hour trek to Songzhuang, whether out of habit or hope that there would be some films waiting for us.

DOChina was supposed to have screened 26 films to its usual audience of Beijingers, filmmakers, Songzhuang residents, and a number of foreign guests (programmers, researchers, film institute reps) who come to form a regular audience. Alas, this was not to be. Several levels of government, represented at a surprisingly high level, made it clear to the sponsoring organisation of the festival, Li Xianting’s Film Fund that this was not the right time for an independent organization to screen Chinese films that the state has not authorized. The Film Fund organizers, unwilling to have their films vetted in advance, chose to call off the festival.

Various reasons were given for why this was precisely the “wrong time” to hold the festival. There are of course the Arab popular democratic uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Oman, and Syria, which the Chinese government can’t help but find relevant to their own situation. There are the recent sporadic, low-key Sunday afternoon “walks” in crowded districts of major cities, which so far seem only to have inspired large contingents of security agents and foreign reporters to congregate and observe each other (or interact in less friendly ways). There is the detention and disappearance of Ai Weiwei, some of his staff, and subsequent detention of five Songzhuang performance artists in the weeks before DOChina was to start.

And there was the coincidental timing of the 1st annual Beijing International Film Festival (April 23-28), in many ways the opposite of DOChina. The BIFF bestrode the capital with glossy, state-sponsored, high-budget and high profile media-driven events, attended by a galaxy of prominent foreign representatives from overseas film festivals and other organizations. (Apparently even a few film screenings, though these were more or less buried amidst the hoopla). Add to that the fact that DOChina, always good at keeping just the right kind of low profile to function the way it wanted, had been on the radar of the national government since an incident from two years ago, when two American film makers scheduled to attend were denied visas, prompting an inquiry from a foreign reporter at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs press conference. In light of so many bad bellwethers, organizers said they were in fact not surprised that this edition of their festival had to be called off.

What happened instead? An opening banquet, attended by the festival staff, filmmakers associated with past editions of the festival and foreign guests. In a strange twist, graciously footing the bill were jovial representatives of the local government (including a table of heavyset guys in the corner, whose serious mien didn’t exactly fit the profile of a Songzhuang artist type). Our host officials had a slightly less charming follow-up act. Starting the next day, some foreign guests staying in the Songzhuang guesthouse had a none-too-discreet escort in the form of plainclothes cops following them through the town. Impressively (from the point of view of the manpower available for a trivial surveillance duty like this one), one of the cops spoke English well enough to have a brief chat with one of my colleagues who was out for a stroll.

Over the next few days, we could meet several of the filmmakers whose films had been scheduled, and we could watch a few of their films on DVDs on a TV set. (The screening rooms were strictly off limits.) There were opportunities to talk with the director afterwards, usually around meals. So on a makeshift scale, something like the standard festival “screening + Q&A” format materialized. These small gatherings were good for the directors to receive feedback and for visitors to learn more about the directors’ work. But this was not a film festival by any means.

DOChina was neither revolutionary nor radical. The organizers are savvy, and know when it’s time to press forward, and when it’s time to take a temporary step back. A very similar event might reappear later in a somewhat different incarnation, in a less sensitive location (i.e. one far from the capital), with a different name. For now, I hope this step back will lead to a stronger, more vibrant, even more independent China Documentary Film Festival in the future.

Relevant Classroom Use

Fortune Teller (dir. Xu Tong)

This year’s 40th edition of the Rotterdam International Film Festival has a particularly strong showing of Chinese films. Though none are competing for the prestigious Tiger award, there are plenty in the Bright Future section of emerging filmmakers, as well as a couple of programs specifically about China. But we are especially pleased to announced that two titles we distribute in North America will make their European premiere at Rotterdam. dGenerate’s Kevin B. Lee will be attending the festival; if you happen to be there and would like to meet Kevin or attend a screening, he can be reached at kevin *at* dgeneratefilms *dot* com.

Our films are:

Fortune Teller, dir. Xu Tong

Li Baicheng is a charismatic fortune teller who services a clientele of prostitutes and marginalized 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, whom he had rescued from her family’s mistreatment. Winter brings a police crackdown on both fortune tellers and prostitutes, forcing Li and Pearl into temporary exile in his hometown, where he revisits old family demons. His humble story is told with chapter headings similar to Qing Dynasty popular fiction, as the film draws narrative complexity from China’s everyday life.

Cinerama 7 Tue 01 Feb 10:30
Cinerama 5 Fri 04 Feb 12:45

More details

Tape, dir. 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.  Much like Jia Zhangke’s Platform, Tape captures a decade’s worth of artistic aspirations and failures, while breaking new ground in individual expression in China.

LV 6 Wed 02 Feb 12:00 tickets
LV 3 Fri 04 Feb 16:00

More details

In addition. Zhao Dayong (Ghost Town, Street Life) will screen his new documentary My Father’s House, as part of the Festival’s special Raiding Africa program. Inspired by the growing influence of China in some African countries, the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) asks seven filmmakers from South Africa, Cameroon, Uganda, Rwanda, Congo and Angola to make films in China. The African directors’ films will premiere, along with a contextual film program, during the Rotterdam’s 40th edition.

We hope to have more coverage of the festival in the days to come…

Relevant Classroom Use

Tape screened on Friday and will also be screened on Wed, Feb. 2 at 12pm and Fri, Feb. 4 at 4pm.  Fortune Teller also screened Friday and screens again on Tuesday, Feb. 1 at 10:30am and Fri, Feb. 4 at 12:45pm.

Descriptions of Tape and Fortune Teller can be found here and here.  And if you happen to be at the festival, track down dGenerate’s Kevin Lee and say hi!

Relevant Classroom Use

Special thanks to our friends at Center for Asian American Media, Frameline, Angry Asian Man, and Hyphen Magazine for co-presenting this series with us. To win a pair of tickets to a screening of your choice, join our Facebook Page and find out how!

Browse the entire schedule for China Underground, get the location of the Viz, and buy tickets here.

Relevant Classroom Use