Contemporary Chinese-Language Cinema, Nov 9-13, 2011

with Peggy Hsiung-ping Chiao, distinguished Taiwanese scholar and film producer, alumna and recipient of the 2011-12 William Randolph Hearst Fellow Award from the College of Communication, The University of Texas at Austin

Public Lecture: Chinese-Language Cinema – The New Image
Nov 11 (Fri) 3:30 p.m. – 5 p.m. Legends Room, the Etter-Harbin Alumni Center

Award Ceremony will be held at the end of the lecture and followed by the reception

Master Class: Filmmaking in China: From Art Cinema to Commercial Production
Nov 10 (Thur) 3:30 p.m. – 5 p.m. CMA 4.128

Public Screenings of Films Produced by Peggy Chiao

Buddha Mountain Nov 9 (Wed) 7:30 p.m. CMB Studio 4D (CMB 4.122)
Beijing Bicycle Nov 10 (Thur) 7:30 p.m. ART 1.102

Taiwan Cinema of the 2000s In Celebration of the Founding of the Taiwan Academy

Reception
Nov 11 (Fri) 5 p.m. -7:30 p.m. Legends Room, the Etter-Harbin Alumni Center

Public Screenings of Films Made in Taiwan

7:30 p.m. CMB Studio 4D (CMB 4.122)
Hear Me Nov 11 (Fri)
Blue Gate Crossing Nov 12 (Sat)
Yang Yang Nov 13 (Sun)

Please see the websites below for more details:

http://rtf.utexas.edu/events/contemporary-chinese-language-cinema

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/eastasia/events/19939

Relevant Classroom Use

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Yang Jin's Er Dong, featured in both QCC and ISSAS programs

By Ariella Tai

Earlier this year, two new screening groups devoted to independent Chinese cinema were introduced into the Chinese film scene.  The Qifang Cinephile Collective (QCC) and Indie Screening Alliance of Art Spaces (ISSAS) are both organized as traveling networks of screenings.  The QCC holds several screenings each month in cafes, bars and libraries located in 11 different cities.  Among the most recent round of screenings, themed “Youth”, was Yang Jin’s Er Dong, available in the dGenerate catalog.  The ISSAS, initiated by curators Zhang Xiamin and Zuo Ging, will offer a 15-film program in the spring and fall.  ISSAS’ April 2010 launch featured six Chinese independent films made within the past two years.

Both the QCC and the ISSAS seek to create new distribution channels within China, so that films providing vital perspectives in contemporary Chinese society and produced through independent means can be circulated within their country of origin.  ISSAS, in particular, was specifically organized to redress these films’ lack of availability to the public and to “…promote the distribution of independent films, integrate current resources and effectively organize film events to further showcase the value of these works.  [They] also hope to undertake some international film exchange events to change the current monologue of film culture in China.”

ISSAS’ first season included 25 films, called “To Live in China,” and programs were broken up into different stages of life, including childhood, elementary school, junior highschool, university, youth, middle-age and elderly.  In his introduction to the program, Zhang Xiamin writes:

Curator Zhang Xiamin

“In my narration, therefore, I must include the description about the nation, the political sovereign entity and personal life. All are stretched like a long roll and everyone is like a chapter in a story. Personal history is history, contemporary history is also history. It can be called local anthropology. I try to divide human history into several ordinary phases. I’ll organize film screenings based on the theme of each era, in an attempt to reflect the social structure, personal experience, public discourse of such era through these works.”

Last season’s screenings took place with across five art spaces: Times Museum, Iberia Centre for Contemporary Art, OCT Contemporary Art Centre, Contemporary Art Research Centre of Southwest Jiaotong University and A Thousand Plateaus Art Space (Chengdu).

Stay tuned for information on this fall’s upcoming lineup!

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Last Lumberjacks (dir. Yu Guangyi)

Organized by Indie Workshop, Non-Profit Incubator (NPI) and the Iberia Center for Contemporary Art, the Eyes on the World series, running April 16-20, examines significant social issues facing contemporary China through the lens of these ten documentary films. These screenings will take place at the Iberia Center for Contemporary Art in the 798 Art District in Beijing.

Full list of films after the break (Screening times are not listed – check ICCA website for more info):

Mr. Jia and His Friends, on aging society. Director: Zi Han

Lao Jia, an 84-year-old ex-cadre, whose wife died 8 years ago, has been employing the services of a matchmaking agency for three years in the hopes of finding someone who is young and pretty, and for that reason he lies to people that he is 30 years younger than his real age. “Gan Ma”, a 77-year-old elderly woman, whose husband deceased 2 years ago, is very popular at the agency and has lots of admirers. This place has flared hope in these seniors’ remaining years of life, as they feel the greatest happiness is to be able to share with someone their stories of loneliness, health, sentiments and memory.

The Last Lumberjacks, on deforestation. Director: Yu Guangyi

It documents a group of lumberjacks’ real life in Heilongjiang Province. Forest exploitation has a hundred years history in this area. Because of inconveniency caused by poor traffic, they still use the old way to work. The film presents, in the world of ice and snow, the lumberjack community’s work, living situation, and their relationship with the nature. The documentation of this disappearing working and living style will be a kind of preservation of the development of the human civilization.

Utopia, on charity house. Director: Wang Yiren

About twenty years ago, Jilin city built a charity house in a remote valley, where more than 20 patients either with mental diseases or with physical handicaps live away from other villages. Those patients form a utopia commune, where members open up wasteland, grow vegetables, make meals, and take care of each other. Still the place is called “vill of the fools” by local people. Three couples’ everyday lives are portrayed in the film.

Looking for Yuan Xueyu, on protection of the minors. Director: Dou Jiangming

Yuan Xueyu, a 15-year-old youth, left home working with his country fellows at a factory in the suburb of Zhengzhou city, but was found missing only ten days or so later. Clues show that he is possibly kidnapped to Shanxi Province. His father Yuan Cheng abandoned his farm work and kept looking for his son in the past two years, during which he saved some young slave labors, but never got his son back.

Lao Ma and His Family, on water shortage. Director: Zha Xiaoyuan

The film unfolds life imagery of a traditional rug-weaver Lao Ma and his family, who live in a poor village at Haiyuan County, Xi Haigu District, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. It faithfully records current living condition of peasants in poor mountain area, including all facets in their everyday life and work: a profession closely tied to tradition, economic difficulties brought by marriage and child delivery, direct influence on farming industry due to the shortage of water resource, working experience away from home, etc.

Wuding River, on school attendance and career choice. Director: Li Xiaofeng

In Northern Shaanxi Province, farmers making a living as tricycle drivers in big cities claim themselves sufferers. They go through untold hardships and manage to send their kids to universities far away. While older kids cannot find a job four years later upon graduation, their younger children are facing college entrance exams again. It seems to be by instinct — the whole family, just like a brooding hen, chooses to believe new changes will eventually happen in their life.

Using (dir. Zhou Hao)

Using, on drug abuse. Director: Zhou Hao

The director gets to know two ‘friends’, and the film organizes around their ‘getting along’. At the very beginning, he didn’t have the plan to make a documentary film. However, he turns into making ‘friend’ with them on purpose later on. The ‘friends’ miraculously allow the director to enter into their lives, their lives of drug taking and dealing. Ah Long initially thought he is a kind of man who is hard to be influenced. His story seems to present the common trace of drug addiction; certainly, it can be just his own story as well.

The Transition Period, on life of civil servants. Director: Zhou Hao

In recent years, most officials in China mainland are confronted with two major problems: how to attract investment and facilitate local economy; and how to dissolve various social contradictions accompanying the modernization and development.
This film narrates stories that happen in the course of three months before a secretary of CPC in County Committee leaves his post.

School, on child psychology. Director: Wei Tie

On the playground of Guangchang Road Primary School hundreds of children are running wild and playing games. I watch them from my balcony for a long time, deeply attracted by the youthful faces of the students: some of them are practicing waist drums in the burning sun; some are given corporal punishment by young teachers; and some are sweating in Ping Pong games down the balcony. Something in them fascinates me and I once was one of them.

Aoluguya, Aoluguya, on minority ethnic groups. Director: Gu Tao

In Great Khingan Mountains of the northern China, the legendary Ewenkis people live on hunting and raising reindeers for generations, a traditional life of their own. Since 2003, hunting is prohibited and they moved out of mountains into the new settlements built by the government. Without the forest and shotguns, Ewenkis people are now deeply at a loss. Some of them return to the mountains and resume their traditional way of life.

Relevant Classroom Use

This marks the first in a five-film screening series at Toronto’s Gibsone Jessop Gallery.  Gibsone Jessop not only showcases international contemporary art from around the globe, with a special focus on China, they also host nightly events such as film screenings, theater and music that deepen the understanding of the cultures and context their artists create within.  The next five Fridays will highlight different dGenerate films.  Subsequent screenings include San Yuan Li, Little Moth, Using, and Queer China, ‘Comrade’ China.

Visit Gibsone Jessop’s site for more information about the event.

Friday, November 6, 2009, 7:30pm
To reserve tickets, please email info@gibsonejessop.com
Tickets: $10 in advance, $12 at the door
Limited Seating.

Relevant Classroom Use

Super, Girls! follows ten female teenagers on their quest to become instant superstars through the “Super Girls Singing Contest,” the wildly popular Chinese version of the “American Idol.” Discussing his unusual subject matter among Chinese indies, director Jian says in the “Director’s Statement”:

“Mainstream life is fairly underrepresented in independent Chinese documentaries as filmmakers tend to focus more on the society’s underprivileged groups. Yet ‘mainstream’ life in fast changing societies like China’s can be as different as Red Guards in 1960s, poets in 1980s, businessmen in 1990s and the ‘Super-girls’ in 2000s. What are the values of the family’s-only-child generation? How do they release their tremendous extra energy and money and embrace a globalized culture? China should not be just the playground for banks and corporations. China’s new generation of independent filmmakers look into the present-day mainstream culture and document and scrutinize this crazy and confusing time of the nation’s history.”

The Sinomathèque is an ongoing film series at the China Institute that showcases contemporary and historical work of every genre originating from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

For more information, visit the China Institute.

For further information, please contact sinomatheque@chinainstitute.org or 212-744-8181×150.

Relevant Classroom Use

The idea for the company was inspired by one of our films, San Yuan Li, by Ou Ning and Cao Fei.  By a chance encounter, I indirectly helped Andrew Gluckman, now a good friend, book a screening of San Yuan Li at New York University in December 2007.  At the time, I had no inkling of what was to happen.  Nor did I know anything about the film.  But when I saw San Yuan Li, I was blown away by the artistry and production methodology of the film.  After the screening, Ou Ning told me many films in China were being made underground, meaning without censorship and without any chance at domestic distribution.

I knew there was an audience here for these films – given the immense interest in China, and a general lack of access to media made from within China, it seemed like an obvious one-two connection.  Problem was, I was and still am an independent film producer, a consuming profession.  I self-distributed films I produced, but the thought of tunneling a new route to bring underground Chinese films to the U.S. was daunting.

So I mulled over the idea, and a month later, it came out in an idle chat between myself and Brian Newman, Tribeca Film Institute’s Executive Director, as we were riding the free Sundance Film Festival shuttle bus.  Brian said he was developing a new platform called Reframe designed specifically to distribute independent films to the academic market.  He promised to accept all the films I brought back China.  Reframe would take care of the physical manufacturing and order fulfillment. Brian’s offer suddenly made the idea much less daunting.  I got back on the phone with Ou Ning, who immediately sent me forty films to watch.

The content was there, the distribution network was coming, all that was needed now was the missing link between the two.

More information on San Yuan Li can be found here.

Come back soon for Part 2 of “The Birth of dGenerate Films” by dGenerate President Karin Chien…

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Photo courtesy World Socialist Website

dGenerate films is proud to welcome director Ying Liang to the New York City and SF Bay Area at the end of April and beginning of May.  Ying will attend screenings of his most recent two features, The Other Half and Good Cats.

Ying is one of a select few Chinese filmmakers screening their works in the program “On the Edge: New Independent Cinema from China 2009″ at the Film Society at Lincoln Center.  The Other Half screens on Friday April 24th at 9pm and Good Cats screens Sunday April 26 at 6pm. 

The Other Half will also have a special screening at the China Institute on April 25th at 5pm.  The April 25th screening will feature Ying Liang in a Q&A session following the film.

Ying Liang will then head across the country for two events in the Bay Area.  The Center for Chinese Studies at UC Berkeley will have Ying on hand for a screening and discussion of The Other Half  on April 28th at 4pm.  Ying will also attend the West Coast premiere of Good Cats as part of the New Directors showcase at the San Francisco International Film Festival on April 26, 28, 29 and May 1.

If you’re interested in attending any of these showings please visit the corresponding website and get your tickets early. 

The Other Half

The Other Half is a harrowing political critique of China that explores the social and environmental problems facing the country, mostly through the monologues of women seeking counsel in a law office. Variety critic Ronnie Scheib said of this movie:

By having “real-life” women tell their problems directly to the camera, behind which sits a “fictional” femme with problems of her own, Ying and g.f./producer/co-writer Peng Shan have forged a dynamic dual perspective on China’s female population.

Endlessly haunting, the complex interplays between the individual and the collective, sound and image, foreground and background, all infuse Ying’s films with serene, even joyous consciousness that is the opposite of despair.

The New Yorker‘s Richard Brody adds: 

With a blend of documentary and fiction, Ying roots the action firmly in a depressing cultural context: the ubiquitous official loudspeakers blaring police announcements and the television droning patriotic propaganda belie the economic and moral corruption that pervades the system and infects private life. Filming with a puckishly bland interview-style fixed camera and sarcastic cityscapes, Ying convincingly depicts a state of repressed volatility which, when it blows, does so with a far-reaching, vitriolic, righteous audacity that has few parallels in the modern cinema. 

Good Cats

Writing for the San Francisco International Film Festival, Roger Garcia describes Ying’s newest feature Good Cats:

Luo Liang, a young man trying to meet the expectations of family and work, has come to town looking for something better but is unsure of his lot in life. His snobbish wife nags him to get a proper job and learn some skills. He responds by romancing a prostitute. His role as a driver for ruthless property developer Boss Peng soon is ratcheted up to enforcer, as Peng’s ambitions expand. His former mentor, meanwhile, sees his fortunes sink and heads for a tragic end. Following Taking Father Home (SKYY Prize, SFIFF 2006), and The Other Half (SFIFF 2008), Ying Liang continues to document the effects of fraud, greed and corruption—capitalism —in his home town of Zigong, charting how economic changes have altered the lives of many Chinese today. Ying’s invocation of the three destinies of modern Chinese man—as wanderer, corrupt boss or tragic loser—is enriched through sly wit, excellent work with nonprofessional actors and his insertion of Chinese rock group Lamb’s Funeral into scenes where the band functions as a kind of Greek chorus to the proceedings. As a putative master of the bleak comedy, Ying finds irony in Deng Xiaoping’s ends-justify-means dictum that a cat’s color is irrelevant: It’s good as long as it catches the rat. But just look how the cats unleashed by Deng have turned out.

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