2014

Satiated Village

In ZOU Xueping's first feature, The Starving Village, ZOU interviewed residents of her hometown about their experiences during a famine that killed tens of millions. In this follow-up, ZOU tries to screen the film in her village, only to meet resistance from family and neighbours fearful of official reprisal. Undeterred, ZOU uses her camera to mediate her hometown's ability to confront its tragic past, with near miraculous results.

When the Bough Breaks

A group of migrant children have grown up next to a rubbish dumpsite in Daxing in the southern suburbs of Beijing. As high- rise buildings begin to encroach upon their shanty settlement and threaten to swallow up their makeshift hut, the children are faced with a predicament. Should they continue their studies or submit to the early onset of adulthood?

Born in Beijing

This is a peculiar work, a bizarre place, a group of bigoted people and a unique vicissitudes of life. MA Li, the director, devoted six years to going deep into the petitioner village, a humble village in Beijing. With a DV, she talks heart to heart with petitioners from all over the country and creates a real world in a limited space, which is rarely known by people yet closely related to our survival.

Petition

Since 1996 ZHAO Liang has filmed the "petitioners", who come from all over China to make complaints in Beijing about abuses and injustices committed by the local authorities. Faced with the most brutal intimidation from the local authorities, the complainants who stubbornly continue despite everything find that their hopes are often in vain.

Tape

After many years, my research into the use of tape reached the point of obsession and madness. In China what I am doing is bound to be ridiculed. Through major events and my own extreme behaviour, I finally reconstructed the reality and merged it with art. But in the end, I've become yet another photo pasted on an employment form, forced to function as part of the machine.

Madame

Wearing a long dress, a white-rose-shaped wig and a pair of high heel shoes, she sings in a bar. The stage belongs to her - the gorgeous Madame Bilan de Linphel. The tailor is talkative. He often goes to the city's gay cruising areas, and he said he was born to love men. Indeed, he had met quite a few whom he had loved so deeply. The point is – this chatty tailor is also Madame Bilan de Linphel on the stage.

Ximaojia Universe

In Yueyang, Hunan Province, the Ximao clan, a group of 20-odd individuals form what amounts to a village. The director, both as a member of the community and a filmmaker, intervenes in the archaeological archival work. Referencing the worldview passed down through the daily lives, myths, and traditions of these people, this grand experimental ethnographic documentary attempts a new interpretation.

Scrape

Shot in Gu Lou District, Najing, Scrape tells the story about how a stall-keeper took back his fruit and cart which were "temporarily distained" by the urban management officers. The case reveals the complicated relationship between the stall-keepers and the urban management officers in China.

Red Paradise

Make your way to the red paradise.

Remember the revolutionary heroes.

Follow the communist party.

And you will find happiness.

Resentment

Quarrelling is just like saying "hello" or "thank you" as it happens a lot in our lives. Quarrelling used to be associated with being "uncivilised" or "lowly-born" although we so often hear people quarrel. This film reveals the quarrelling between motorbike riders, on the Internet and the angry expression used by ordinary people in Beijing.

You are here