Peng Tao

By Isabella Tianzi Cai

Relevant Classroom Use

This is the conclusion of Shelly Kraicer’s essay “The Use and Abuse of Chinese Cinema (in the West).” Click here for the introduction and first half of the essay.

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Oxhide 2 (dir. Liu Jiayin)

4.  Exemplary Asian independent art cinema. This misreading has something in common with Number 1 (“Exotic, colorful diversion”) , but in a more rarified, sophisticated form. It also contradicts (but exists in a weird sort of symbiosis with) Number 5 below. There is supposed to be something essentially “Asian” (meaning usually East Asian) about the predominant mode of contemporary art cinema now celebrated in festivals worldwide. Films that convey China’s backwardness (see Number 6 below) often employ a Andre Bazin-influenced mise en scène that is post-realist in its effect. Long takes, a demandingly slow pace, opaque storytelling, a distant motionless camera, inexpressive, non-professional actors, lots and lots of visual and narrative blankness, emptiness, stillness. Examples abound, the best recent exponents being Yang Heng (Betelnut, Sun Spots), Yang Rui (Crossing the Mountain), and in her own inimitable way, Liu Jiayin (Oxhide and Oxhide 2).

This analysis reduces an often surprising diversity of film styles into something that is assumed to spring, essentially and almost automatically, from a specific historical and cultural background, with local visual and pictorial traditions transmuted directly into their filmic correlatives. This in a sense over-simplifies and over-particularizes Chinese filmmakers who are utterly fluent (more than most of us) in the world-cinema image market (you can easily find films from everywhere, from every era, in China’s wonderfully eclectic bootleg DVD shops). By insisting on the “Chinese-ness” of these films, a special understanding, a privileged access to the films’ “essences,” may reserved for Sinological experts.

5. International art cinema master(s’) works. On the other hand, it’s just as easy to abuse Chinese cinema as some sort of proof that master directors work in a universal style recognizalbe to experts, critics, professionals, and well-trained festival audiences. In absolute contradistinction to Number 4 above, this attitude says “you don’t need to know anything about China and its specific cultural history to appreciate these films. They are great cinema, full stop”. This can be a branding exercise, like Number 2 (“Commercial entertainment”), but one for a more discriminating audience who needs to be reassured that she or he will be able to enjoy the latest Chinese masterpiece without unduly stressing over its foreignness. This is global art, i.e. It belongs to “Us,” not to its incidentally “Other” creators. Hegemony reasserts itself as art / film criticism, denaturing a film for our appropriation and viewing pleasure (with emphasis on the pleasure). This tendency can be seen in the flattering (for a forty-year-old director) inclusion of the latest Jia Zhangke film I Wish I Knew in the “Masters” section of the Toronto International Film Festival programme.

Little Moth (dir. Peng Tao)

6.  Films that confirm China’s backwardness. This is a reception trap that many films of the sixth generation and later can be snagged by, through not fault of their own. Starting with Wang Xiaoshuai, Zhang Yuan, Jia Zhangke, and now including the newer generation of Chinese DV filmmakers whose work frequently depicts marginal lives of lost loners and gangsters in small cities and rural backwaters — the frequently told Chinese indie tale of alienated losers who drift through disillusionment, crime, prostitution, and self-destruction (see my Chinese indie shop fantasy) Some Western viewers of Chinese cinemaseem to derive a perverse form of comfort from these films. This goes something like: Is China really so powerful, so advanced? Don’t be anxious: the core is still rotten, the social contradictions are so intractable, that China won’t have the power to threaten us nor the force of example to lead us for a very long time.

A completely opposite yet somewhat related response often erupts from some Chinese audience members in their frequently heated reactions to many of these grim, downbeat indie films that are welcomed at film festivals all over the world. When I host discussions after one of these films, there’s always some person in the audience who denounces the film and its director for flaunting China’s backwardness, distorting Chinese problems, airing China’s dirty laundry, exposing only the negative (and unrepresentative) side of recent Chinese reality. These complaints stem almost exclusively from a strong and rather unsettling sense of national pride. From older audience members who remember their idealistic support for Chinese socialism this is perhaps understandable, but from younger “angry youth patriots” it is distressingly common. (see Jia Zhangke’s recent China Weekly articles on his visits to Toronto and Vancouver, in Chinese.)

Some recent and exemplary representatives of the kind of films that might unfortunately attract misunderstandings from both sides of the China-West divide are social issues-driven features and docs: fiction films like Peng Tao’s Little Moth or Ying Liang’s The Other Half; bold explorations of lives on the margins of Chinese society such as Xu Tong’s Fortune Teller and Yu Guangyi’s Survival Song. I actually witnessed the latter being criticized by a Chinese audience member as a director’s perverse indulgence, wallowing in the unrepresentative dark, miserable recesses of Chinese society. No film that takes a critical stance seems safe from certain viewers.

7. There’s still no more seductive media attractant to spray onto Chinese movies than the overused “Banned In China!” tag. It still works to sell tickets, too. Genuine politically radical films from China are exciting to see, and benefit from the sustained support of more adventurous festivals around the world. I hope we have done our part at VIFF, where we’ve recently introduced North American audiences to explicitly political films like Hu Jie’s Though I Am Gone, Huang Wenhai’s We, Xu Xin’s Karamay, and Zhao Liang’s Petition.

Though I Am Gone (dir. Hu Jie)

It’s possible for films like this to be misused, though. There is an unfortunate lazy receptiveness among some in the West to seeing China through the “Soviet model”, a misperception of Chinese reality that conflates it with a classic jackbooted Eastern European Cold War-style repression. The reality of Chinese political repression merits condemnation, but for its specifically Chinese and contemporary details, not for a kind of McCarthyite hangover that wants easy confirmation of its misperception that there is a familiar, simple totalitarian Other, ideologically opposite to idealized Western democracies, still lurking in today’s People’s Republic. It’s heartening to see that several Chinese film critics, scholars, and directors whom I know recently rather courageously signed a petition supporting Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize and condemning his continued detention.

I want to be careful and clear: this is a particular, minor key misuse, but it’s there, quietly pernicious (often evident in places like newspaper editorials and right wing American commentary). It doesn’t by any means dominate the discourse around these films. It rather warps the edges of this discourse, sometimes blocking a nuanced and historically informed view of Chinese government unconstitutionality and lawlessness in favour of the boogey-man kind. A Chinese colleague of mine who otherwise admired Wang Bing’s new prison camp feature The Ditch was exactly worried about this potential misappropriation. He feared that Western audiences might view this film simply as confirmation that China essentially was and still is one big prison camp, period.

What is to be done? I don’t claim that this list is exhaustive: I’m sure there are abuses and misunderstandings lurking out there that I haven’t catalogued. I also don’t claim that this is an ineluctable, closed, all-pervasive system. These are traps, phenomena that hinder and sometimes distort — but don’t by any means block — all sorts of interesting possibilities, uses, interpretations, and understandings of Chinese cinema. Note the plurals. I’m not saying that there ought to be One Correct Reading, just the opposite. Though I’m partial (overly partial, it’s been suggested) to ideological deconstruction, that’s just one pathway into the movies. There are as many fruitful, provocative, and unruly readings, uses, and understandings as there are open, thoughtful, and motivated critics and audiences. But perhaps it’s useful to have a little map demarcating a few wrong turns other pitfalls to warn the wary traveller of problems along the way.

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My talk was directed primarily towards the Chinese filmmakers in the audience in Nanjing. But it is also partly, I hope, a kind of self-criticism (I hope that my awareness of these misuses helps to some degree in inoculating me against relying on them), partly as a very quick tour of what Chinese filmmakers might expect from a world looking both at their films and at China with increasing fascination and various admixtures of apprehension and admiration. I’m not sure at all what conclusions one might draw from this, if one were a Chinese filmmaker. But a formal Chinese symposium doesn’t lend itself to any kind of formal participatory feedback. Maybe the filmmaker’s answer is “Who cares how the outside world misuses our films? “ Perhaps it’s only our (the West’s) problem, not theirs. Perhaps it’s only a transitional problem, as the “rest of the world” adjusts itself, awkwardly, fearfully, tentatively, to an emerging Chinese presence on the international stage, culturally as well as economically and politically. In time, it may be we who care very much about analyzing just how China misuses and abuses our “universalizing” cultural products. Wouldn’t that be refreshing?

Relevant Classroom Use

Peng Tao at the Sanlitun Apple Store, Beijing

Peng Tao is the award-winning director of Little Moth (2007) and a graduate of the Art Department of Beijing Film Academy, where he received the Outstanding Short Film Award and first prize at the 1st JINZI Awards. Peng Tao’s second feature, Floating in Memory (2009), is supported by the prestigious Sundance Institute Feature Film Program and the Hubert Bals Fund, and screened in the VPRO Tiger Awards Competition at the 2009 International Film Festival Rotterdam.

The video of Peng’s interview is in three parts, with an English transcript following each video. Video of Part One is below. Click through to view both videos and the full transcript. Interview conducted by Jane Zheng. Videography by Michael Cheng. English transcription and subtitles by Yuqian Yan and Isabella Tianzi Cai.

Note: English subtitles for each video can be accessed by clicking on the CC button in the pop-up menu on the bottom right corner of the player.

VIDEO PART ONE

JZ: I know you graduated from the Beijing Film Academy. The literature department, right?

PT: Yes.

JZ: Most students from the literature department become scriptwriter. How did you become a director from a scriptwriter? It’s quite a big change. Can you tell us about this process?

PT: I think everyone can become a director because being a director is to express your thoughts and understanding of life. Beijing Film Academy provided me opportunities to study all kinds of basic professional knowledge. You don’t have to stick to your major. We all have different ideas about the future. After I finished my script, I felt that only I could best present the thoughts I wanted to express. So I decided to direct it myself. Other people might not like my script.

JZ: Did you show it to other people or is it just your assumption?

PT: Not this one, but it did happen before. They thought it was not good enough.

JZ: Scriptwriter and director are two different roles. You’ve done both. So what do you think the biggest difference is between these two roles?

PT: I think script is the blueprint of a film.  It’s you need a plan to build a house. Everything is based on this plan.  The role of a scriptwriter is to draw the blueprint, whereas the director’s responsibility is to build the actual house, to realize it with images.

JZ: To organize the workers to build the house.

PT: Right. The president of Beijing Film Academy once said that a director is like a supervisor. He/she has other people do technical work for him/her. A director just needs to supervise their work and make final check.

JZ: Another opinion is that a director is not good at everything; he/she only knows a little bit of everything. His/her most important role is to organize people with expertise to finish the film. What do you think about this?

PT: I kind of agree.  Nowadays, people with all sorts of occupations make films, such as poets, writers, and dancers, not just students graduated from Film Academy.

JZ: I think many in our audience today want to be a director in spite of their varied background.

PT: I believe everyone can be a director because they all have their own understanding and feeling of life.

JZ: Thank you for encouraging us. We just saw the 2-minute trailer. Perhaps many people still don’t know what the film is about. I know that your second film is called Floating in Memory. Can you tell us more about your two films and your recent project?

PT: Both of my two films, Little Moth and Floating in Memory, reflect the current situation in Chinese society and the life condition of ordinary people and what they are thinking. They are not about urban subjects, but semi-urban, semi-rural subjects.

JZ:  Where was it filmed?

PT: In Yuan’an County in Hubei province.

JZ: Why did you choose that place?

PT: Because it suits the characters in my script.  It’s a small remote county that matches the script.  So I picked that place.

JZ: My question is why you didn’t choose a city that is closer to our life? What made you decide to present the life of people who are so far away from us?

PT: I was born in city and grew up in city. I’ve never lived in the countryside.  Many people asked me the same question why I didn’t depict city life but chose countryside or small counties. China is such a huge country. I don’t think big cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou are representative of the entire country.  Second and third-tier cities, small counties and countryside are more representative of China. Moreover, among the 1.4 billion Chinese populations, the majority are still peasants. More than 1 billion are peasants, only 20 or 30 million people live in cities. But there are only very few contemporary Chinese films reflect the life of peasants. I think that these are the best place to show the reality and social change of contemporary China.

JZ: As you told me before, the subject matter of your two films is a bit dark. Have you ever received any criticism? For quite a long time, people have been criticizing Chinese directors for using dark or marginalized side of China to appeal to oversea film festivals.  What made you choose this subject matter for your film? I know your film has won many awards abroad. Please tell us what you think.

PT: I think China is experiencing dramatic changes right now. This change is different from that in the 80s or 90s since its economical development and international status are incomparable to then. You can feel a difference every day. In the past, you could easily win awards as long as you made a different voice from the government. Now it’s totally different. You can’t get attention simply by making a different voice or throwing out a marginalized subject. Now there are lots of independent Chinese films, not everyone can get recognition. I think the most important thing is that your film should reflect true human emotions, life condition and also hope. As long as a film is innovative and has its unique style, subject and perspective, it can be accepted both in and outside China.

JZ: A film that reveals true feelings is a good film.

PT: Right. The fundamental concern is people.

JZ: Let’s talk about your new film.

PT: I’m now preparing for my new film. If everything goes well, I’ll start in October. It’s about the life of old people.

VIDEO PART TWO

JZ: Since you don’t want to tell us more about your new film, we’ll just wait and see. You used HD camera to make your first two films. We know that Apple products make it possible for individuals to make films. What do you think of the role of digital technology in filmmaking?

PT: I think film is now in the digital era. The emergence of DV camera accelerated the development of independent films both in and outside China.  It makes filmmaking more accessible.  As I said before, everyone can be a director.  But before digital camera, this is almost impossible. Traditional film technology requires a big film crew. You need a cameraman and also someone to develop the film and make copies. Digital technology makes things much easier. Postproduction is simplified.  Editing can even be finished within a couple of days.

JZ: All you need is a computer.

PT: Right. It’s also very easy to reedit the film. When I just graduated from school, I used 35mm film, and the process was very complicated …

JZ: It sounds quite far away although it was actually just several years ago. This technique is still in use?

PT: It’s different now. In school they taught us old technique in order to make us familiar with the whole process.  Now even film is digitalized and edited on computer. Then you edit the film based on the digital version.

JZ: So the process is simplified and the cost is reduced.

PT: Right.

JZ: One man and one camera can make a film. These are all the benefits brought by digital technology. As a filmmaker, what challenge do you have to face with the fast developing technology?

PT: I think so. Now filmmakers are everywhere especially independent filmmakers since you can finish a film at a very low cost. But it’s not necessarily a good film. More accessibility actually means higher requirement for the directors. You have to find a clear way to express your feeling and understand of life. Everyone can be a director, but not everyone can make an artwork.

JZ: Right. Although as you said that the development of new technology helps to lower down the cost, but making a film still need lots of money. Without financial support, you still can’t realize your dream of being a director. I know that director Peng is financed by Sundance and Rotterdam Film Festival. Can you share with us how you got support from them? We know that some European countries have funding for independent filmmakers.

PT: Yes. I did get some funding for my previous film. But I don’t know much in detail since I’m not the producer. My responsibility was to write the script. It was my producer who took care of the financing.

JZ: Litter Moth went to lots of film festivals and won many awards. Can you share with us your feeling for the success of your first film?

PT: Of course I was quite happy. I studied at Film Academy for a long time and I was eager to see if I could actually make a film. You can’t be a real filmmaker without making a film. Many people claim that they are filmmakers after graduate from Film Academy, but they don’t have a work to prove that. So little Moth is a testimony for me. It proves that what I learned from school is useful.

JZ: But if you have a very high starting point, will you … For example, Did you expect your second film to go to any film festival?

PT: My second film also went to some film festivals. The threshold of filmmaking can sometimes strangle new ideas in the cradle.  Without digital technology, when the investors look at your script, their concern is that if the film is worth millions or even ten million of investment. Of course he’s concerned about profit. For example, my first film is an art house film rather than commercial.  If no one wants to finance the film since it won’t make any money, the audience would never get a chance to see it. But in the digital era, you can finish the film with far less money.

JZ: I just came up with another question. Film foundations encourage and help independent filmmakers through providing financial support. It played an important role in producing your first film. But as you said, they are also concerned with profit, the market and audience. I guess it might have brought you some troubles. After all film is made for audience. You’ll have to think about the market. If you can’t find any funding, you’ll have to look for investors. Is there any change in the past several years?

PT: There are certainly changes. If your film doesn’t have a good box office, no one will further support your career as a director. I can’t give a definite answer to your question. It involves the struggle of the director. Sometimes I prefer to film this way, but the investors want to make it more commercial, adding some movie stars or change the script into a comedy.  The audiences like that. People are tired from work. They are looking for laughter at cinema not serious stories. So it depends on the director’s choice. Chinese audiences mostly just watch blockbusters. Not so many people care about low budget films. But the oversea market is more diversified. They not only have blockbuster commercial films but also alternative films for intellectuals or certain group of audience. They have specific audience for different kinds of films. But in China, there’s no diversity.

JZ: I don’t know if the audience will agree with me. I think when we give the audience multiple choices; we’ll gradually cultivate specific interest of our audience. It’s just a matter of time and extent. I always believe that a good film, even a non-commercial one, can be well received among its audience.  A low budget film can still get attention as long as it resonates with the audience.

PT: Right.

VIDEO PART THREE

JZ: Does anyone have any questions for Director Peng about filmmaking, about financing, about Apple products? Any kind of questions.

A1: When you are writing a script, do you try to describe the image in your mind or do you write the story first and then visualize it?

PT: My method is to imagine a picture in mind first and then put it into words. I’m always the director of my script, so I don’t have to make my script very articulate.  But for a professional scriptwriter, you can’t do it this way. You have to give the director a detailed, complete script. You must make it very clear so that other people can understand. But for me, as long as I can understand my script, it’s fine. I normally just make an outline. Doesn’t have to be very clear. Everything is in my mind. My script is just an outline.

A2: How do you pick actors? Do you find actors first or write the script first?

PT: In my case, I wrote the script first then looked for actors. But sometimes the directors would pick actors first, such as Hollywood. They have s star-based system, which means they the script is tailored to specific starts and then find someone suitable to direct the film. Hollywood always does that. But I just write the script and look for suitable actors.

A2: Did you find the little in Hubei?

PT: Yes.

JZ: We forgot to mention before. All the actors in his film are unprofessional actors.

A2: Is the boy disabled?

PT: No, he isn’t. It’s performed.

A2: Did you teach them how to act?

PT: Right. Unprofessional actors never had professional trainings before. They don’t know how to live in front of the camera. So you need to teach them. Choosing actors is very important. You should pick those who are outgoing and are interested in working with you. If they meet these requirements, you just need to guide them how to live naturally in front of the camera.

A2:  Did you find them through local connections, such as friends’ relatives?

PT: Through many ways. Some are introduced by friend, some are found by myself. The male character in Floating in Memory was found in the street. He’s the chief of a local restaurant. He was smoking downstairs he finished cooking. We happened to see him after the meal. I felt that he’s very close to the main character so I asked him if he would like to act. He was very surprised because it’s very rare to meet someone looking for actors in such a small place. He didn’t believe that. But after he found out that it was for real, he quit his job and joined my film crew.  The owner of the restaurant was quite angry because he only has one cook.

A2: Is the video we just saw from the film or just footage.

PT: It’s the trailer.

A2: Why is it on 4:3?

PT: Because it’s for TV.

A2: What camera did you use?

PT: Canon XL2.

A2: Did you correct the color?

PT: Not really. Just slightly darkened.

JZ: Did you do color correction yourself?

PT: I found someone to do it. Not too much. Just lower down the saturation.

A2: When you mail your film abroad, do you send DVD?

PT: Right. But for screening, sometimes they need the Master tape.

JZ: So many questions.

A2: Master tape is the Beta?

PT: Yes. Digital Beta.

JZ: As I know, the director just needs to prepare the DVD, but the producer should collect director’s statement, actors’ information, and introduction of the film. You should give a set of document to the film festival. Right?

PT: Yes.

A2: What are the major Film Festivals for Chinese language films that you care the most?

PT: For Chinese language films, there are only Hong Kong Film Festivals … and Taiwan Film Festival, the Golden Horse Award. Others are mainly English.

A2: Do you have to pay application fee for foreign film festivals?

PT: Yes, of course. But sometimes the festival organizer will come to China to pick films. You can give your film to them directly. The application fee is quite expensive. It’s in dollars.

JZ: Can I ask your occupation? Are you a film student?

A2:  I’ve already graduated.

JZ:  You are also a director?

A2: Yes.

JZ: Do you have your own film?

A2: I haven’t won any award yet.

JZ: Keep on trying. Other questions?

A3: What’s the target audience of your two films, international film festival or domestic audience?

PT: At the beginning, I didn’t think too much about film festivals. I just wanted to express my feeling. I just wanted to film something I really liked. I wanted to make a good script into a film.

A3: If a writer wants to express some feelings, he/she writes a book and shares it with audiences. Do you think your film is closer to Chinese or foreign audience?

PT: It’s difficult to find a boundary in art. It’s hard to say weather it belongs to the US, UK or China. Of course there’s something national. But my film is about people and human emotion. People’s emotion is always connected. Like some good foreign films, you won’t say you can’t understand them because they are acted by foreigners.

A3: I have an example. There’s an Italian film called Beautiful Life. It got lots of attention worldwide and won Best Foreign Film at Oscar. Chinese people like it a lot, but Italian people don’t think it’s an Italian film.

PT: Is there another possibility… Like The Crazy Stone is very popular in China, but Hong Kong people don’t think it’s that funny at all. They don’t quite understand what it tries to say.

A3: I understand what you mean. Jokes are regional. Like Zhou Libo’s very popular in Shanghai but people in Beijing don’t understand him.

PT: Right.

A3: But people’s emotion is the same. If the domestic audience don’t like the film … I don’t mean your film. I haven’t seen it yet. But I don’t agree that Chinese films rarely reflect the life of peasants. There are lots of films that depict the reality of China, but they don’t have enough chances to be shown.

PT: You are right. Not enough screenings.

Relevant Classroom Use

Little Moth (dir. Peng Tao)

Continuing our recap of the Asia Society series “China’s Past, Present and Future on Film,” here is an excerpt from a full-length review by Joe Bendel of Peng Tao’s heartbreaking feature Little Moth:

In China’s less prosperous provinces, people often become commodities. It is not just white slavery either. Evidently, there is also a market for physically pitiable children for professional panhandling rings. Such a fate befalls one eleven year old girl in Peng Tao’sLittle Moth…

Filmed in a “digital generation” Vérité style, Moth is disturbingly realistic. Its injustices will likely outrage many viewers. Some might also get upset with Peng, who ends at a rather unsatisfying juncture. Presumably that is the point though. This is socially minded cinema at its most manipulative and effective…

While Moth shares the extremely naturalistic approach of many independent Chinese filmmakers, it has a very clear narrative thread. There is real danger and considerable double-dealing, though Peng chooses to de-emphasize the potential thriller aspects of her story (adapted from a novel by Bai Tianguang). It is certainly an example of a director masterfully controlling the audience’s emotional responses. Angry and heartrending, Moth packs a walloping emotional punch…

Read the full review.

Find out more about Little Moth.

Watch clips from Little Moth below:

Relevant Classroom Use

You can use discount code asia725 to buy tickets at the $7 member rate. Tickets can be purchased at the Asia Society website or at the Asia Society box office.

Little Moth (Xue Chan)
PENG Tao. China, 2007. Narrative, 99 minutes. Digibeta.
Hubei dialect w/ English subtitles.

Friday, April 2, 6:45 pm
Asia Society and Museum
725 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10021

View clips from the film below. Further details about the film can be found here, and after the break.

“Suspenseful, moving yet ruthlessly unsentimental.” – Jason Anderson, Eye Weekly“

“A nearly perfect little film.” – Shelly Kraicer, Vancouver International Film Festival

When an impoverished country couple adopts a crippled young girl and puts her to work begging on city streets, a battle soon ensues over her fate.

Luo Jiang and Guihua, a poor, middle-aged couple with few prospects, decide to buy an 11-year-old girl, Xiao Ezi (aka “Little Moth”), for $140 in rural China. Xiao Ezi’s life is in peril, as she is forced to earn money for her new parents as a beggar while suffering from a blood disease that leaves her unable to walk. Her greedy adoptive father, Luo Jiang, refuses to buy her medicine, while Guihua’s growing maternal affection wracks her with guilt. After a run-in with local extortionists, the three flee into the territory of the unsavory Mr. Yang, whose one-armed boy Xiao Chun is also forced to beg. Inevitably the grownups take turns taking advantage of each other, giving the children a rare opportunity to develop a protective bond with one another.

With virtually no budget, a hand-held digital camera and a cast of non-professionals, Peng Tao turns the sordid street life of small town China into a chain-reaction tale of human cruelty and unforgettable suspense. LITTLE MOTH “melds the anger and storytelling scope of Dickens, the doc-influenced immediacy and sensitive gaze of the Dardenne brothers, and the best tendencies of recent Chinese cinema.” (Robert Koehler, Variety).

Select Film Festivals:

Hong Kong International Film Festival
Locarno International Film Festival
Bucharest International Film Festival
Cairo International Film Festival
Brisbane International Film Festival

Relevant Classroom Use

dGenerate Films is teaming up with the Apple Store in Beijing to present a new monthly series to showcase China’s newest filmmakers powered by digital technology. Digital tools, from digital video cameras to editing software, have placed filmmaking in the hands of the people. Listen and watch how award-winning directors use digital technology to create their latest movies, attracting worldwide attention and acclaim.

All events will be held at the Apple Store in Sanlitun, Beijing, starting at 7pm.

Events are listed below in English; scroll further to read them in Chinese.

On Feburary 17, join Peng Tao in conversation about LITTLE MOTH and FLOATING IN MEMORY. We will screen clips from both films, and then hear Peng Tao discuss the process of making films with Mac products. Peng Tao is the award-winning director of LITTLE MOTH (2007) and a graduate of the Art Department of Beijing Film Academy, where he received the Outstanding Short Film Award and first prize at the 1st JINZI Awards. Peng Tao’s second feature, FLOATING IN MEMORY (2009), is supported by the prestigious Sundance Institute Feature Film Program and the Hubert Bals Fund, and screened in the VPRO Tiger Awards Competition at the 2009 International Film Festival Rotterdam.

On February 18, join Cui Zi’en in conversation about how he uses Adobe and Final Cut Pro to make his groundbreaking digital video features. Cui Zi’en is a director, film scholar, screenwriter, and novelist based in Beijing. He is an associate professor at the Beijing Film Academy. Cui Zi’en is a premiere avant-garde digital filmmaker in China. He has published nine novels in China and Hong Kong, and he is also the author of books on criticism and theory, as well as a columnist for magazines.

On February 19, join Jian Yi in conversation about filming from villages to cities with Apple products. Jian Yi is an independent filmmaker, visual artist and writer. He is a finalist for the British Council’s 2007 International Young Film Entrepreneur of the Year award. He partnered with filmmaker Wu Wenguang to launch the China Villager Documentary Project. Jian’s photos on China’s village governance toured the nation’s seven provinces as well as Brussels and Strasburg. He has been a visiting fellow at Yale University, Cambridge University, the New School in New York, and the Asian Cultural Council.

Relevant Classroom Use

Peng Tao

He received the Outstanding Short Film Award at the Beijing Student Film Festival in winter 2002; his short film Story was shown at the 14th Festival Internacional De Arte Eletronica. His graduate project, a 35mm short film called Goodbye Childhood, won first prize at the 1st JINZI Awards established by Art Department of Beijing Film Academy, and it was screened at the Yokohama International Film Festival in 2004. He wrote and directed his first feature Little Moth (Xue Chan), completed in March 2007. In March 2008, he finished a short film Wait (produced by Jia Zhangke) as part of a longer collaborative feature with four other young directors. His second feature Floating In Memory (2009), developed with the assistance of the Sundance Institute Feature Film Program and produced with support from the Hubert Bals Fund, was screened in the VPRO Tiger Awards Competition at the 2009 International Film Festival Rotterdam.

FILMOGRAPHY

Floating in Memory
2009, 107 min, narrative

• 2009 Rotterdam International Film Festival

Wait
2008, short film

Little Moth
2007, 99min, narrative

• Hong Kong International Film Festival
• Locarno International Film Festival
• Bucharest International Film Festival
• Cairo International Film Festival
• Brisbane International Film Festival

Goodbye Childhood
2004, 35 min, narrative

• Yokohama International Film Festival

Story
2002, short film

• Festival Internacional De Arte Eletronica

Relevant Classroom Use

Betelnut (dir. Yang Heng)

Perhaps I’ve been spending just a bit too much time watching movies in China? I have this recurring daydream, most often when I’m watching a new Chinese film that some enterprising young director has sent me. I always watch every independent film that I receive. You never know what gems might appear unsolicited in the mail. And, even if the film isn’t so terrific, it will still be a useful index of all sorts of interesting trends: it might reveal what young filmmakers in China are filming, how they are looking at the world around them, or, at least, what they think people like me want to see.

The daydream, or perhaps it’s a fantasy, is this. There exists, down some dusty grey hutong alleyway of Beijing, a Chinese Indie Director’s Discount Emporium. You want to make a film? Step right in and assemble your movie at bargain prices. The shelving on the left is stocked with cast members: long-haired village boys, out of school, drifting aimlessly. At the back is a set of grainy, dusty, brown-grey village-scapes, ready to be populated by said drifters. To the right, useful equipment. Some tripods, but with a restriction: they must be set up at least 50 metres from the subjects being filmed. Right beside is a very long long shelf, holding 3 minute, 10 minute, even 20 minute-long takes, offered for a steal at family-sized package prices. Alternatively, you could go for deep discount on little DV cams, with the proviso that, held close to the subjects, they be shaken as vigorously as possible. The dialogue shelves in the centre are threadbare: screenplays for rent are all dialogue-light. And, off in a corner, is a shelf labelled “Prostitutes”. It’s over-loaded, with a three-for-the-price-of-one sale.

This may seem a bit mean. But the people I’m making fun of here, in fact, are international film programmers like me (I select Chinese language films for the Vancouver International Film Festival), not the filmmakers themselves. It seems that many of us (my colleagues from other film festivals, and wouldn’t exclude myself) sometimes seem to select films armed with a checklist of “East Asian art film attributes”, the things that populate the shelves of our hutong indie shop. Who can blame a young director from China, who, with little or no chance of gaining any return on his or her investment within his own country, tries to design a film to suit those foreigners who pay the bills, fund post production, and just might offer an overseas distribution deal?

It’s too easy to choose more of what you already know, and it’s too easy to train audiences (I should say, to educate audiences) to expect a certain kind of film experience from a certain brand of national cinema. It’s something that I and my colleagues need constantly to be on guard against. After all, the joy, and if I may say so, the social value of the work I do come from constantly expanding, not restricting, the range of cinema that audiences can see. We should be in the business of opening wider the gates, or even blasting the gates apart altogether. Not honing and strengthening them to exquisite perfection.

Little Moth (dir. Peng Tao)

Fortunately, the Chinese indie brand is still going quite strong. In fact, each of the items in my indie shop has current exponents who give them fresh power and exciting possibilities.

Peng Tao uses that browny-grey palette to devastatingly expressive effect in Little Moth (Xue chan, 2007). His tightly framed hand-held camera rattles along behind the film’s desperately poor characters, pinning them against the rough, impoverished, desaturated urban environments where they are trapped. The colourless futures we see are all that they can imagine for themselves.

As for that distant tripod, I can think of no better exponent than Yang Heng with his debut Betelnut (Binglang, 2006) and this year’s Sun Spots (Guang ban, 2009). The tension he exposes between solitary youths and the wide spaces of their rural environments comes from classical symmetries, balances Yang designs in his distantly framed images. He shows how expressive and powerful a camera set far back from the action can be.

Oxhide (dir. Liu Jiayin)

If you want to see long takes that sing, Liu Jiayin’s brilliant series Oxhide I and Oxhide II (Niupi I and Niupi II) are state of the art examples. She knows how to make time itself the subject, and the director, of each shot: she stretches and repurposes cinema in ways no one else yet has imagined.

The girlfriends-turned-prostitutes by the long-haired drifters trope? Well, perhaps that one is due for a little rest.

What’s really eye-opening, finally, is when I see films that push these conventions into new territory: Wanma Caidan’s The Search, which screened at both the Toronto and Vancouver International Film Festivals, uses a long shots to heartbreaking effect. Even more exciting are films that forego the conventions completely. To take one example, the very young director Wu Haohao has already made a series of documentaries (Kun 1 Action!, Criticizing China, Forbid Silence, all from 2008) that tear up every convention possible, harnessing the boldness and audacity of youth to make movies say new things in wild new ways.

Relevant Classroom Use