WENG Shouming. China, 2007. Narrative, 90 minutes. Mandarin and Fujianese w/ English subtitles.
Two interweaving stories of youth crime and family crisis shed light on illegal emigration and human trafficking in China’s Fujian province, in this award-winning debut feature.
In the southeastern coastal province of Fujian, Amerika and Roppongi (whose names refer to their absent fathers’ whereabouts) front “The Neon Knights,” a young band of delinquents caught up in fast living. They fuel their riotous routine by videotaping and blackmailing rich women engaged in trysts while their emigrant husbands are sending checks from overseas. Amerika’s ruthlessness is put to the test when he catches his own mother in an affair. Meanwhile, fellow gang member Dragon, who turns to crime to pay his family’s debt from smuggling his brother to Ireland, goes into hiding after stabbing a man. After an unexpected windfall, Dragon ponders whether to follow his brother out of the country or to help his family.
Robin Weng’s debut brings alive the world of Fujian, notoriously known as China’s centre for illegal emigration and human trafficking. Shot vividly on film with street-level realism, Fujian becomes a blistering microcosm for an entire generation of young Chinese lost in the global era. FUJIAN BLUE is “an unflinching depiction of the effect of globalization. Weng achieves a naturalism in detail that borders on investigative documentary” (Michael Guillen, The Evening Class). With “marvelous energy… Weng’s work captures this situation with remarkable clarity” (Gautaman Bhaskaran, The Hollywood Reporter).
Dragons and Tigers Award, Vancouver International Film Festival
Rotterdam International Film Festival
Pusan International Film Festival
Mill Valley Film Festival
ZHAO Liang. China, 2007. Documentary, 122 min. Mandarin w/ English subtitles.
On the North Korean border, Chinese military police enforce the law with a heavy hand, leading to moments of harrowing abuse and surreal satire.
Amidst the barren wintry landscape of Northeast China, Chinese military police officers rigidly enforce law and order in an impoverished mountain town. They raid a private residence to bust an illegal mahjong game, casually abuse a pickpocket accused of throwing away evidence, and berate a confession out of a scrap collector working without a permit. The police switch between precise investigative procedure, explosions of violent fury, and moments of comic ineptitude, all captured incredibly before the camera.
A prime example of how independent documentaries are on the vanguard of Chinese cinema, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT is an unprecedented look at the everyday workings of law enforcement in the world’s largest authoritarian society. With penetrating camerawork, Zhao Liang (Petition, 2009 Cannes Film Festival) patiently reveals the methods police use to interrogate and coerce suspects to confess crimes – and the consequences when such techniques backfire. With a cold, objective eye that depicts reality in great detail while withholding judgment, “Zhao’s artistry is instantly apparent.” (Robert Koehler, Variety)
Hong Kong International Film Festival
Locarno Film Festival
Rome International Film Festival
Best Documentary, France’s Festival des Trois Continents
Best Director, One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, Czech Republic
International Human Rights Award, Nuremberg Film Festival
ZHAO Dayong. China, 2008. Documentary, 169 minutes.
Mandarin, Nu and Lisu w/ English subtitles.
For U.S. Sales, including television, home video and non-theatrical exhibition, please contact: Karin Chien
(646) 360-0343 karin [at] dgeneratefilms [dot] com“A miniature epic of the everyday” – A.O. Scott, The New York Times
“Compelling… You won’t be able to shut it off” – Jim Hoberman, Village Voice
A remote village in southwest China is haunted by traces of its cultural past while its residents piece together their existence.
Zhiziluo is a town barely clinging to life. Tucked away in a rugged corner of Yunnan Province, Lisu and Nu minority villagers squat in the abandoned halls of this remote former Community county seat. Divided into three parts, this epic documentary takes an intimate look at its varied cast of characters, bringing audiences face to face with people left behind by China’s new economy. A father-son duo of elderly preachers argue over the future of their village church. Two young lovers face a break-up over harsh financial realities. A twelve year-old boy, abandoned by his family, scavenges the hillside to feed himself.
“Directed with scrupulous attention to detail by Zhao Dayong” (Manohla Dargis, The New York Times), Ghost Town is “one of the most important films to have emerged from the booming (but still underexplored) field of Chinese independent documentaries” (Dennis Lim, Moving Image Source). Ghost Town “has a strong sense of historical consciousness, an eye for unique material, and a real sympathy for the people in the film and their tough lives” (Chris Berry, Goldsmiths University). “I do not expect to soon find scenes to match Ghost Town’s mountaintop funeral, the running along after a rowdy exorcism, or the scanning of faces at the town Christmas chorale. His back to prosperity, Dayong finds hallowed ground” (Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice).
An unusual relationship develops between an urban Chinese couple struggling with heroin and a filmmaker chronicling their addiction, in this provocative documentary on drug abuse, filmmaking and friendship.
For three years, filmmaker Zhou Hao chronicled the lives of Long and Jun, a couple struggling with heroin addiction in Guangzhou. Zhou captures Chinese junkie subculture, its members languishing in a slum flophouse, the equivalent of a modern day opium den. When Long is hospitalized after a failed robbery, Zhou speaks out from behind the camera to intervene. Still, Long and Jun persist, soon dealing drugs full-time to make ends meet. As the couple increasingly offers lies for answers, Zhou must confront his ethical responsibilities to them, as a friend and a documentarian.
USING probes a dark, cruel reality of contemporary Chinese society that has rarely been seen by any audience. Addicts disclose techniques for dealing with police, confronting sham suppliers and staying high throughout the day. Zhou’s unflinching depiction of his friends’ repeated attempts to quit blurs the line between filmmaker and subject, and raises provocative questions about the ways in which each uses the other.
• 2007 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam
• 2008 Hong Kong Film Festival
• 2008 The 5th China Independent Film Festival
• 2008 Taiwan International Documentary Festival
YANG Heng. China, 2005. Narrative, 112 minutes. Hunan Dialect w/ English subtitles.
“Exquisite!” – Tony Rayns, Film Comment
“Pure cinema” – Susanna Harutyunyan, FIPRESCI – The International Federation of Film Critics
Along a sleepy Hunan riverside, two delinquent boys experience a summer of love and violence in Yang Heng’s visually stunning debut.
Ali and Xiao Yu are two teenage rebels idling away their days along the banks of a river in Jishou, a quiet town in Hunan province. They steal motorbikes, bully and rob kids, sing karaoke and get into fist fights outside the local internet bar. But their rough exterior belies a deeper romanticism, and a tenderness unfolds between them and their teenage loves. As one day bleeds into the next in this impoverished rural setting, it becomes apparent that these sun-baked days of misspent youth will be the wildest, freest time of their lives.
These everyday subjects are transformed by a groundbreaking digital cinematography unlike any other Chinese film. Alternating deep-focus with bold flatness, Yang explores spaces with a mastery that recalls both classical Chinese and modernist landscape painting. Filmed in a summery palette with images that give off an otherworldly glow, BETELNUT offers a one-of-a-kind vision of what it’s like to be young, poor and free in China. “Yang is a first-class visual stylist, and BETELNUT is far and away the most exciting debut film I’ve seen all year.” (Michael Sicinski, The University of Houston)
• Pusan International Film Festival – Winner – Best New Asian Filmmaker
• Hong Kong International Film Festival – Winner – FIPRESCI Jury Prize
• 3 Continents Festival Nantes – Winner – New Vision Award
Rachel TEJADA. USA, 2008. Documentary, 18 minutes.
Six documentary shorts chronicle the changing state of China’s independent, and underground, film scene.
Join dGenerate Films on a month-long trip to post-Olympics China. We traveled from Shanghai to Nanjing to Beijing, and kept the cameras rolling. The result is unprecedented access into China’s other film community, where writing, filming, and distribution don’t always wait for government approval.
The series starts at the largest underground film festival in China, explores the spirit of independence in Beijing, tours art-film compounds, and discusses the future of Chinese cinema. Along the way, the series features the most important filmmakers, critics, producers, curators, and underground scenesters making films, their way, in China today.
dGenerate Films is a new non-theatrical distributor of independent contemporary films from China. Our uncensored, award-winning films are selected for their artistic merit as well as their educational value. Films are available for purchase on DVD and VOD, as well as for exhibition rental and broadcast.
