Posts Tagged ‘sixth generation’

Full Translation of Jia Zhangke’s Essay on Sixth Generation Cinema Now Available

Wednesday, November 10th, 2010

Film director Jia Zhangke

Published as part of Dong Week at dGenerate Films, a series of articles on Jia Zhangke and the art world in China.

Back in August, we published a summary and partial translation of Jia Zhangke’s essay reflecting on the Sixth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, ”I Don’t Believe That You Can Predict Our Ending (Wo bu xiang xin ni neng cai dao wo men jie ju).” We have now translated the entire article, which can be found below. Thanks to Jia Zhangke and Zhu Wen for providing us with the full text. English translation by Isabella Tianzi Cai.

Jia first delivered the essay on July 25 at the Beijing premiere of Sixth Generation director Wang Xiaoshuai’s new feature Chongqing Blues. An unsubtitled video of Jia’s address can be found on Youku.com. An abridged version of his remarks, titled ”I Don’t Believe That You Can Predict Our Ending (Wo bu xiang xin ni neng cai dao wo men jie ju)” had been published a week earlier in the Chinese newspaper The Southern Weekly.

Speaking of “the Sixth Generation”: I Don’t Believe That You Can Predict Our Ending

By Jia Zhangke

I am not sure how one would define “the Sixth Generation.” In terms of age, I am seven years younger than Zhang Yuan, who directed Mama, and I am half a year older than Lu Chuan, who is believed to belong to “the Seventh Generation.” I made Xiao Wu when I was 28. From 1998 onwards people have thought of me as from “the Sixth Generation.”

All along I have believed that there is no difference between desperately asserting oneself as belonging to a generation and desperately denying that fact. The reason that a film director does not want to categorize him or herself is either because that he or she wants to emphasize his or her uniqueness or that he or she wants to avoid having anything to do with the negative impressions of his or her generation. For example, whenever we speak of “the Sixth Generation,” one of the first things that come to our mind is that they have notoriously bad box office returns. For me, this is fine. If people want to think of me as such, then so be it.

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Free 6th Generation Screenings and Symposium in Rochester

Monday, September 27th, 2010

Thomas Mao (dir. Zhu Wen)

The Rochester Institute of Technology has kicked off a multi-week series of free screenings in Rochester of Sixth Generation Chinese films. The series will continue through the weekend of October 7-9, culminating with a series of panel discussions with leading Chinese cinema experts. The final panel, “What is the Future of Chinese cinema?” will include 6th Generation filmmaker Zhu Wen and will be moderated by dGenerate Films’ Kevin Lee.

Here’s the full press release and schedule, courtesy of Rochester Institute of Technology:

Independent filmmakers from mainland China, whose films have won at Cannes, Berlin and Tribeca Film Festivals, premiere their work in Rochester starting Tuesday, Sept. 21.

With the support of the New York Council for the Humanities, Rochester Institute of Technology will be hosting a series of film screenings culminating with a two-day symposium featuring writers and scholars of Chinese cinema. Among the guests will be acclaimed filmmaker and author Zhu Wen who has been intimately involved in the tight Beijing filmmaking community that has given rise to many of the most famous Sixth Generation films. The Oct. 8 and 9 symposium will look at issues surrounding new Chinese cinema. All events are free and open to the public. To learn more, visit http://chinesefilmsymposium.blogspot.com.

“In the United States, there are only a handful of writers and even less filmmakers that have any real knowledge of these wonderful films, mainly because they are screened only at festivals and aren’t all distributed,” says Geoffrey Alan Rhodes, professor in RIT’s School of Film and Animation. “Yet these filmmakers are some of the freshest voices in contemporary media—filmmakers making films for arts’ sake—censored, almost completely underground and without any legal public venue for national distribution.”

The following are the film screenings:

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“We Will Always Be Loyal to Cinema:” Jia Zhangke Assesses the Sixth Generation

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010

by Isabella Tianzi Cai

Wang Xiaoshuai introduces Jia Zhangke as Lou Ye looks on at the BC MOMA in Beijing (photo: Dan Edwards)

On July 25, Chinese film auteur Jia Zhangke spoke at Beijing’s BC MOMA about his feelings concerning China’s Sixth Generation filmmakers. The occasion was the Beijing premiere of Sixth Generation director Wang Xiaoshuai‘s new feature Chongqing Blues. An unsubtitled video of Jia’s address can be found on Youku.com.

An abridged version of his remarks, titled ”I Don’t Believe That You Can Predict Our Ending (Wo bu xiang xin ni neng cai dao wo men jie ju)” had been published a week earlier in the Chinese newspaper The Southern Weekly. We have translated some excerpts of the article below.

Jia started by saying that he had not heard of the name “Sixth Generation” until 1992. However, he was aware of the works by directors such as Zhang Yuan, Wang Xiaoshuai, and Wu Wenguang. Eventually these directors were deemed the pioneers of China’s first independent film movement.
A 21-year old at that time, Jia was filled with intense feelings when he read a news article about Wang Xiaoshuai. In the article, Wang was said to have climbed onto a freight train bound for Baoding in Hebei Province to buy cheap black-and-white film stock. Jia was touched by Wang’s resourceful and audacious undertaking and deemed Wang one of China’s free-spirited dreamers who contributed a great deal to keeping the Chinese culture of the 1990s alive.
Jia explained the significance of the works by the Sixth Generation filmmakers as such:
“During the reform era, many people were marginalized because they lacked power and money. Which of our films told the stories of these people? Which, amongst them, induced society to acknowledge their existence – helping the weak gain recognition? The Sixth Generation filmmakers’ films did. To me, their films are the gems of the Chinese culture of the 1990s.”
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