FILM FORUM

May Festival 2008's Film Forum program will consist of "China Villager Documentary Project", "New Documentary Works", "Filmmaker in Focus: Frank Scheffer", "Experimental Video and Student Short Films" and Young Documentary FilmmakerTraining Project.


"China Villager Documentary Project"
Launched in 2005, the China Villager Documentary Project is an ongoing, ground-breaking national project initiated and implemented by Beijing-based Caochangdi Workstation. Ten villagers were selected from across the nation to receive a production training course at Caochangdi in 2005, after which they returned to their home village for a month to shoot their proposed films featuring grassroots democracy occurring in their respective villages, and returned to Caochangdi to complete their first documentary shorts. During 2006-2007, the Project organized three post-production training workshops in May 2006, May 2007, October 2007. At the end of 2007, three of the ten original filmmakers, Shao Yuzhen, Zhang Huancai, and Wang Wei completed their first feature-length documentary films. In following with the ongoing nature of the Project, all three villager films bear the same title "My Village in 2006." (Subsequent films will be entitled "My Village in 2007," "My Village in 2008," etc.) Despite sharing the same title, each film embodies the concept of the filmic process originating from one's "corporeal location," which is the idea of looking through the lens without leaving the body's physical position and location, thus allowing for a look into the living flesh of stories of survival in these remote villages. The introduction of these three new films will be supplemented by the poignant written commentaries from theater director Tian Gebing, and Zhang Huancai, China Villager Documentary Project filmmaker.

"New Works in Documentary Film"
Our New Documentary Works program will be featuring three debut films from three emergent documentary filmmakers, two of whom are recent graduates of China Academy of Art New Media Department. In "Back to Daxian," filmmaker Liu Heng returns to her native home, back to her junior high school to follow a student in her first year. Shot from an entirely personal perspective, including feelings of nostalgia for the place in which one grew up, the film takes us into the world of the city's youth, a rough adolescent society, which may call into question romantic notions, perhaps outdated, of the flowery season of our youth.

Liu Yang's "Shaved Head," about the life of a middle-aged man, who faces the camera and in one continuous shot, recounts the story of his event-riddled life. A documentary whose simplicity denies it further simplification, about a life that is far from simplistic, presents a cruel story which calls to empathy those who come to bear his witness.

Both films are remarkable in that their makers, despite their inexperience, have penetrated their characters and stories in a level so deep as to allow the audience to feel an aching sensation, a clear perception of another's human condition. Liu Heng is a former participant and the first to exhibit her finished product from Caochangdi's Young Documentary Filmmaker Training Project 2007.

Our third featured filmmaker is Zha Xiaoyuan from Yinchuan, Ningxia Autonomous Region, with his first film "Old Ma." This film is remarkable also in terms of the filmmaker's age: Zha Xiaoyuan had not touched a video camcorder until after the age of 50. Having received a degree from Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications, Zha Xiaoyuan worked in government administration for ten years, and in business for another ten. After twenty years, Zha abandoned his career and financial remuneration, to become a teacher in a remote village of the impoverished Xi Haigu Region. Compelled to make record of the lives of the villagers with whom he was working, Zha put down his chalk and picked up a DV camera for the first time. Zha proceeded to document the life of the village from 2004 to 2007. To the filmmaker, making this film was a kind of "gift" or accounting for is his 50 years in existence. To the audience, it's an eye-opening account of a place in which no bird would prefer to land, and how it's members survive. Words that come to mind such as "patience," "endurance," or what roughly translates as "knowing the mandates of the heavens and accepting fate," do no justice to these people's battles. Perhaps this is something that belongs in the realm of the miraculous.

Caochangdi Workstation's previous "New Documentary Works" screenings have always showcased emergent filmmakers and their debuts. What makes this event unusual is that three filmmakers, Zha and two Liu's, represent "father-daughter," two generations of emergent filmmakers. For the two bright-eyed twenty-somethings who have just stepped out of school gates, the time is ripe for peering through the documentary lens to enter society's realities, and not a minute too early. And for filmmaker Zha, who met the DV camera after age 50, not a minute too late. One may consider that a life already lived in large part, is full of experience, sensations, wisdom waiting for an outlet out of which to erupt. Or perhaps it can be considered a logical outcome of all the accumulated wisdom acquired with age.

There are more four new films as well in the program this year: Ghost Town (directed by Zhao Dayong), Using (directed by Zhou Hao), Born in 2008 (directed by Fan Jian). Dr. Ma’s Country Clinic (directed by Cong Feng).

"Filmmaker in Focus: Frank Scheffer "
The screening of " Filmmaker in Focus: Frank Scheffer " seeks to understand the products of a twenty-some year long pursuit in documentary filmmaking. The four selections represent how the filmmaker used the documentary style to capture the contemporary experimental music scene and its influential figures, including John Cage and Gustav Mahler, their understanding of music, and their "descendants" on whose works they have had a profound impact. Experimental music is a genre that can be obscure to many of us, punctuated by strange symbols and sounds, but Scheffer, through his documentary works, has given us access into the world of strange sounds. Scheffer's selected works not only introduce a celebrated documentary filmmaker, but introduce to us the unconventional ingenuity of experimental musicians and their musical creations.

"Young Documentary Filmmakers Training Project"
On-the-spot exchanges and training workshops hold an important place in May Festival's documentary film activities. Besides Film Forum screenings and Q and A's with filmmakers themselves, Caochangdi Workstation will also be hosting the second annual "Young Documentary Filmmakers Training Project," where yet more emergent filmmakers interested in practical documentary training will gather together to share and learn with each other.

1. Villager Documentary Project

My Village in 2006
Director: Shao Yuzhen
80 mins/2007

About the film and its director
Ms. Shao Yuzhen is a 57-year-old farmer living in a village on the outskirts of Beijing. Her documentary filmmaking practice started in 2005, when she was selected to be one of the ten national participants of the China Villager Documentary Project, a project implemented by the Caochangdi Workstation. She was awarded a digital video camera and has been using it to document her life and lives of her fellow villagers ever since. During the production of her first documentary short entitled I Film My Village, Shao Yuzhen developed a personal approach to documentary filmmaking, with which she went on to shoot more than 50 hours of video footages during 2006 and 2007. This new film, which was edited by Shao herself with the footages she compiled in the last couple of years, vividly captures the life of an ordinary village woman as she juggles her family life, rural work, village social life on a daily basis. In a uniquely “Shao style,” the film also documents the villagers’ encounters with mass media professionals (who represent “the world beyond the village”) and interactions between the villagers and the “outsiders”.

Director’s Statement
I have spent the entire 50-odd years of my life in my little village home, dividing my time between field work and piles of house chore. After a hard day’s work in the field, my husband would come home, rest and watch TV, while I would cook, do the laundry and get other housework done. Years went by while Life repeated itself day after day. There was little to be left for our next generations. Now that I am armed with a digital video camera, I can leave an account of my life and lives of my fellow villagers. This will be our legacy to be passed on to the next generations.


Director’s Bio
Shao Yuzhen, female, born in 1950, has spent all her past years living and working in her home village of Shaziying, located in Beijing’s Shunyi District. Shao joined Caochangdi’s Villager Documentary Project in 2005 and completed a documentary short entitled I Film My Village. My Village in 2006 is Shao’s first feature-length documentary film.

My Village in 2006
Director: Zhang Huancai
90 mins/2007

About the film and its director
Zhang Huancai, a 47-year-old villager living in central China’s Shaanxi Province, enjoys literature and writing as well as a reputation of being the “Man of Letters” of his home village. Zhang learned to use a digital video camera when he joined the Villager Documentary Project in 2005 and has since become the most diligent of all ten villager participants. By 2007, Zhang has had over 100 hours of video footages in store, all of which are centered around his life and those of his village peers. Since completion of his first documentary short, Zhang shot and edited his first feature-length documentary My Village in 2006. This new film documents Zhang’s fellow villagers as they live their lives, manage their daily chores, and go through joys and sorrows. Zhang also shares with his audience moments of his family life, as he and his wife nag, tease, fight with each other while staggering on towards a possibly better-off future – typical hardship and hopes of the nation’s “rank and files.”

Director’s Statement
Chickens always seem to be able to find their way to food. Smart or hard-working chickens are soon well-fed and so are their kids. I think farmers are like chickens – they have to go and find food every single day and only the smart or diligent ones become better-off than their peers. I myself am a “chicken” who is never content with being just fed well. Yet apart from trying to bring home the bacons, I dream of indulging myself in high-brow literature and digital video filmmaking. As a result, I am not well-fed nor am I able to provide a good living for my wife and child. My wife always complains that I do not know where I belong, while some village folks sneer at my dreams as they think I am craving for what I am not worthy of. Well, in every village, there must be a handful few who refuse to abandon their dreams. They may choose to focus on calligraphy and art or on dramas and literature. Like me, they do not use their energy solely on “finding the food,” so they cannot possibly be well-fed either. When I film my family life, I mean to document what Life means to these dreamers who live in the countryside. Besides, I would like to also document how hard it is for “chickens,” be they well-fed, ill-fed or averagely-fed, to “find their food.”? It has never been easy for any of the “chickens” to make a living. We all have our share of hardship. This was my entry point to the production of My Village in 2006.

Director’s Bio
Zhang Huancai, male, was born in 1960 into a village named Shijiazhai in Shaanxi Province. He is a farmer who occasionally leaves his village to find odd jobs in the city. Zhang joined Villager Documentary Project in 2006, with whose support he finished his first documentary short A Futile Election. My Village in 2006 is his first feature-length documentary film.

My Village in 2006
Director: Wang Wei
75 mins/2007

About the film and its director
At the beginning of the film, Wang Wei shot his monologue in front of the camera. In this way, Wang Wei expressed his wish to intervene in village affairs with his digital video camera, document and interact with realities, rather than merely to complete a film production. The 30-year-old Wang Wei is one of the youngest participants of the Villager Documentary Project. Wang Wei was once an enlisted man. He decided to return to his home village after military service, hoping to make a difference in this impoverished village. Wang Wei has since been an active participant in the village’s public affairs and has devoted his time and energy to the disadvantaged people. There were promising and discouraging moments along the way. This new film captures these moments as well as the director’s emotional responses.

Director’s Statement
Being a farmer myself, I know the stress under hardship which my fellow villagers endure and I have my share of helplessness as well. For Chinese farmers, Life is endless toil sustained by a meager diet. The farmers may seem to belong to our time, but in actual fact have fallen far behind in all senses. I strove to stay quiet while filming them in order to keep a record of their silent existence in this loud “harmonious Socialist society” of ours.


Director’s Bio
Wang Wei, male, was born in 1977 into Guanyinsi Wangjia village of eastern China’s Shandong Province. He participated in the Villager Documentary Project in 2005 and completed his first documentary short Land Distribution. My Village in 2006 is Wang’s first feature-length documentary film.

2. New Works in Documentary Film

Back to Daxian
Director: Liu Heng
Length: 120 minutes
Production: 2008

Synopsis:
Daxian is located deep in the Daba mountains in the northeast of Sichuan province. Actually, Daxian is the city’s former name. Its residents didn’t like the name Daxian because “xian” means town, and they wanted their home to be known as a city. So they changed its name many times, finally settling on Dachuan, which is what it is called today. This video is about a group of students studying in the railway school, which is near the train station. Their class is the best of the entire grade. Chen Tingting is the discipline commissioner of the class and also my lead actor. She is cute and outgoing. In Daxian, where surrounding villages are quickly becoming expanding city, the students’ parents are preoccupied with life’s distractions, and the teachers are unable to do as much for the students as they would like. So the children bounce and drift towards their futures.

Director’s Words:
I think this is a documentary about youth. It is about a class of 7th graders in Daxian. I don’t like to go back to this city although it is where I spent nearly all of my childhood. When I went back, I saw that many things were happening there that I could not ignore. Sometimes I think the city is awful, but sometimes I remember many beautiful things about it. In the country, during the winter, the soil under the green plants is a deep purple color. This is the color of the people there, vivid and powerful. All the days I spent there were happy ones, not only during my childhood but also the days with Ting Ting and her classmates. Through these people I find new meaning in daily life.


Director’s Bio
Liu Heng, born in Chongqing, 1982, graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. She is studying in China Academy of Art now. Back to Daxian is her first feature-length documentary film.

Old Ma
Director: Zha Xiaoyuan
Length: 160 minutes
Production: 2008

Synopsis:
Old Ma is a carpet maker. He learned and inherited his trade from his father. Old Ma lives in Ning Xia Province in Xi Hai Gu district, Hai Yuan County. This is an arid place and Old Ma’s village is also very barren. In the past, nine out of ten years suffered from droughts. That year, there was also drought and the crops did not grow. If they want to drink water they must pull together money and pay someone to bring it from outside. The villagers leave the village to work as hired hands. They harvest vegetables and work in coal mines. They have worked every job to try to earn a living.

Old Ma has a big family of 8 to 9 people. They looked for a wife for the second son so they began lending money to make a little cash. Their lives were exhausting. Old Ma is a Muslim; his faith is like the air around his body. The women in Old Ma’s family are like the other women in the village. In particular, they put up with their hard lives. But money is a big problem every day. Their poverty haunts them like a ghost. Their lives are grueling. When they go outside looking for work, they see that others have more comfortable lives. So they place their hope for the future on their children.

Director’s Statement:
I wanted to relieve the burden weighing on my heart so I went to Hai Yuan County to teach elementary school for one year. I also wanted to know how the people in this region, very different from myself, lived.
During my year there I met Old Ma. I mainly filmed him because he was a carpet maker and because he was calm and steady.
Over the course of several years I got to know Old Ma and developed a mutual feeling with him.
Old Ma is like the other people in that place; he has land to farm, a house, a wife, children, grandsons. These people know the earth and labor, and how to get along with people. They are Hui minority and Muslim.
Old Ma’s dream is for “new clothes and good food”, and he his hope is for life to improve a little. He is satisfied if he can work the land and take walks with his sheep. But the droughts continue, so he is ill at ease and troubled.
His dream is that when he is old, he can go the mosque to pray, and abstain from eating during Ramadan. He wants to obtain peace and contentment in the world, but for the ultimate question, death, he has no problem.
I think Old Ma has all the necessities he needs for life but his life is very poor. Today I can see that I understand Old Ma’s way of life. I filmed Old Ma and his family for two years. But when I compare the feelings I had while I was in the village filming and my feelings afterward, I have questions about the condition and meaning of my life. Before, I thought I should live like I did before, but today I question this.
I filmed calm and steady Old Ma and I think through this we can understand him and his life.My hope is that more people can watch this film “Old Ma”.


Director’s Bio
Zha Xiaoyuan, man, Hui Minority, was born in Sichuan Province in 1957. In 1962, his parents took him to Yinchuan in Ningxia Province. In 1975, he finished high school and went to the country to become a farmer. He graduated from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications in 1982, and then worked in a telecommunications bureau in Yinchuan, Ningxia Province. From 1992 to 2004 he was in business with various people, and from 2004 until present he has been unemployed, as well as filmed a little for a documentary film. “Old Ma” is his first documentary film.

Shaved Head
Director: Liu Yang
Length: 113 minutes
Production: 2008

Synopsis:
A person named Shaved Head talks about himself and about his first dream, about the difference between dream and reality, about social realities....he was imprisoned twice, and had pure love, ambition and dreams like other ordinary people. He wanted to be like Napoleon and Hitler. “You see, the entire globe belonged to Napoleon and Hitler.”His earliest idea was to transcend other people and possess the world. But reality destroyed this thought. “What does not erupt in silence, dies in silence”. Sometimes, this is a difficult choice, and at first he was compelled to give up, to let his heart shrink. He lived in society, where everyone seeks their own place.? Sometimes it’s rainy, sometimes it’s sunny.

Director’s Statement:
Meeting him was fate. I met him when I went to his shop to buy fruit, and he told to me many things about his past. When I went to his shop, he often said: “Now I’m forced to sell fruit, I have no choice, like in the past….” This made me very curious. So I often bought fruit and our relationship became sincere. Now and then, he told me pieces of his story, his dreams and his loves, and how it’s difficult to forget his life in prison. I was sure he had many stories, unusual stories.
So I made this documentary film: filmed an ordinary person’s dreams, someone who wanted things that no one else had, who wanted the whole globe, filmed an ordinary person’s love, pure love, filmed an ordinary person’s experience. He had freedom, he tried to escape life, and he struggled.
He realized that ordinary people didn’t know the kind of life he was living. His experiences changed him into who he is today. He said, “The law is equal but the people are not”. Dream and reality are separate, so let everyone realize for himself the true significance of many things.


Director’s Bio
Liu Yang was born in 1985 in Ling Chuan city in Jiang Xi Province. In 2004, he entered the New Media Department of China Academy of Art where he is a fourth year student. “Shaved Head” is his first long documentary film.

Ghost Town
Director: Zhao Dayong
Length: 180 minutes
Production: 2008

Synopsis:
Zhiziluo is a ghost town full of life. Lisu and Nu minority villagers squat in the abandoned halls of this remote former communist county seat, where Cultural Revolution slogans fade into the shadows of the old city hall, and a blank white figure of Chairman Mao gazes out silently to the wild mountain wilderness of the Salween River Valley in China’s southwest Yunnan province.
The film is arranged into three sections：voices, recollections and innocence. Each deals with various aspects of the lives of the Nu and Lisu occupants of this ghost town.
“Innocence”tells the story of Yuehan, the pastor of the local Christian church, and his 87 year-old father, John the Elder, a formerly jailed Lisu pastor who was among the first to study with Western missionaries before they were expelled by the Communist Party in 1957. “Innocence” reveals both the personal rift between Yuehan and his father as well as questions over the past and future of the church.
“Recollections” is a story about two young lovers faced with? substantial cultural and economic obstacles. The young man, Pu Biqiu, must decide whether to leave Zhiziluo for brighter prospects in the city, and his girlfriend faces the possibility of being sold by her father into marriage on China’s wealthier east coast to help the family with its financial woes.
“Innocence”is the story of 12 year-old Lisu boy Ah Long, who lives alone in the ghost town and idles his days away with youthful games. After playing with the ghosts of Lisu tradition (the boys revel in a traditional Lisu excorcism), Ah Long hurries off to church.

Director’s Statement:
When China took the brutal path of the Cultural Revolution, it lost sight of the most fundamental understanding of the value of human life. In the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, as Chinese busied themselves with becoming materially prosperous to the point of sacrificing even their own well-being, they once again lost sight of the cultural and spiritual meaning of life – and what little was left of our culture again faced extinction.
As our past has been erased, our history has become mere legend. In this film I wanted to explore the idea of these lost histories and ravaged cultures, and by extension my own cultural identity, by delving into the lives and spirit of the abandoned city.


Director’s Bio
Zhao Dayong, studied at the Oil Painting Department of Shenyang Luxun Academy of Fine Arts, and starts to work for his independent documentary in 2001, has films Street Life (2006), Ghost Town (2008).

Using 2008
Director: Zhou Hao
Length: 102 minutes
Production: 2008

Synopsis:
A journalist himself, the director encountered in an interview a small group of people who, despite all odds, willingly invite him into their world of drug use and peddling. That’s how “Using” was born.
Starting out with no clear plan to make a documentary, the director uses his camera to record the course of their association with each other.
Three years later, the film's key figure faces death penalty for the crime of 'transporting drugs', the kind of story to be found in big cities across the world. Just what exactly is the relationship between a filmmaker and those being portrayed? “Using” has the answer.

Director’s Bio
Zhou, Hao, 40 years old, director of 21st Century Film Studio.
Successively worked as a photographer for the Photography Department of Xinhua News Agency, Southern Weekly. As documentary director, has films Using (2008), Senior Year (2006), Houjie Township (2003).

Born in 2008
Producer Director:Fan Jian
Assistant Director:Li Yueyan
Photography:Li Yueyan & Fan Jian
Recorded by:Li Yueyan & Dong Shuai
Edited by: Fan Jian
Length: 68 minutes
Gleaner Documentary Workshop Presents in 2008

Synopsis:
Beijing, a city rushing toward modernization, is the coordinate of China. Covered in the mask of the night, desire grows.
Taxi, swarming in the city, never seems to pause.

A taxi driver, thirty years old, married for 7 years, lives in Beijing. His passion has gone, in a city on its peak time of passion.
Passengers are, teachers, doctors, students, merchants, pimps, prostitutes, believers…

In spring, the driver says to every passenger, “the sand storm is coming tomorrow.” Summer comes, the driver complains to the passengers that his wife doesn’t love him anymore. The passengers also have their own share of stories of happiness and sorrow. Someone is going through a break-up and it is heart-breaking; someone came all the way to meet his old lover in a night club of Beijing; someone told the driver, it’s normal to have a loveless life. Autumn time, the driver tells the passengers that, he wants to be a monk, but where is the place with the absolute peace? Different passengers have different responses and answers…
Seasons change, color of the night remains, in which resides the stories of the mix of dreams, desires, and human nature…

Director’s Statement:
What I always want to do is to change the angles of camera and the ways of shooting. Some unexpected things may happen when we choose a special way to shoot. I’ve already tried to place a camera on a taxi. It’s not about seeking novelty or infringing others’ privacies, but to find something interesting when no one is aware of a camera somewhere. Actually in this way we may easily get to the most genuine part of one’s heart.

Beijing is the reduction of China. More and more people are crowding into this city, comes with expanding desires, yet love is and the warmth of hearts are fading away that someone are getting desperate. They are trying to escape. In fact the driver’s “run away” is his genuine reflection on this, only it has not been fully released. I help releasing his thoughts to see the others’ responses. Those questions for passengers from the taxi driver are also the questions from the director. The more intense the questions are, the stronger the human nature would be exposed. The taxi is a symbol. It’s a life track of some sort. The taxi driver is also a symbol. But he is more of a human being.

One flows into another, in these four sections of story. It resembles a four-act play, but different from the drama of a theater, we don’t know how it ends, it might never do.


Director’s Bio
Fan Jian, born in 1977, graduated from directing department of Beijing Film Academy (BFA). Fan Jian entered CCTV In 2002 and began with his documentary career. Until now, he has made more than 20 documentaries in CCTV including Grapes of Wrath which has won the Chinese Documentary Prize. Fan Jian also has made a few independent documentaries. His first independent documentary is SARS Reflection, which has been showed in China-France culture interflow image exhibition. Electioneering is his second independent documentary. Dancing in The City, his third independent documentary, has been selected in International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) 2006 and many other documentary film festivals.

Dr. Ma’s Country Clinic
Director, producer, cinematography, editing：Cong Feng
Length: 215min
Production：2007

Synopsis:
Huangyangchuan town, Gulang county, Gansu province, China. It’s a place of arid mountain area with poor traffic conditions.
Ma Bingcheng is a respected local doctor. As for his good medical skills, many patients (most of them are farmers) come to see him everyday.In this narrow and small clinic, when people wait for seeing doctor or making up prescription, they usually chat with each others about their lives, local conditions, or the experience of people they know.

In spring, before set out to labour elsewhere, some people came to see the doctor, among them, there was even an old women near her 70s; Some women talked about a young guy who had disappeared ever since he went out to labor 10 years ago; A woman whose family once migrated to other place to make a better living, but was driven away and had to come back home; An old man at his 60’s suffered from silicosis, the disease caused by 20 years laboring in the small coalpit when he was young, he was the most long-lived coal miner in his village, in the end, he died of silicosis; A man once came to Beijing to appeal to the higher authorities for help, for his brother was beaten to be blind by villagers who bribed the local police; Once an advanced worker in 70’s, a grey-haired woman now leads a more difficult life than others; In the clinic, two old women met again after more than 30 years, the last time they saw each other, they were still young farmers working and playing together in people’s commune; Many people talked about the young wives bought from other places, they always tried to escape, which was very common in this place; Some people who once left to labor elsewhere got sick again, they have to returned to see the doctor;

As most young people went out laboring, the old generation had to do the hard work in the field. They talked about their experience and poor living conditions in the people’s commune, which was the root cause for their illness…

Summer has gone. Like the past few years, the drought once again destroyed the dream and hope when people planted the crops.
Before the Spring Festival, the most important traditional festival for Chinese, people who left to labor elsewhere returned home. In the clinic, some talked about their working experiences in the past year. They didn’t bring back much good news…

Life and death, illness and old age, they are just like changing of the seasons. Death exists, while life goes on. Dr. Ma, keeps on seeing his patients everyday.

This narrow country clinic becomes an open space, the information and experiences of different people who came to the clinic intertwine together, thus reveal the living conditions of local farmers, and the fate of the old generation and the new generation connected together. And I believe that the condition of the farmers in Huangyangchuan is not exceptive, instead, it’s something common in a wider range for Chinese people, especially the farmers.


Director’s Bio
Born in 1972 , Chengde city, Hebei Province, China. As the culture editor of weekly newspaper, The International Herald Leader. He has the poem Invisible Train published. Since 2005, he began to make documentary films, has films Religion（2006）, Man With A Remote Control（2007）Doctor Ma’s Country Clinic（2007）.



3. Biography Frank Scheffer

Frank Scheffer (b.1956, in The Netherlands) is international recognized as a master of sound and image. He founded Allegri Film Company, which specializes in documentaries on music and art. Scheffer was schooled at the Academy for Industrial Design (Eindhoven), “Vrije Academie” Art College (Den Haag) where he studied with the famous experimental filmmaker Frans Zwartjes and is a graduate from the Dutch Film Academy (Amsterdam).

Early films include ‘Zoetrope People’ (1982), a documentary on Francis Ford Coppola and his studio with Wim Wenders, Tom Waits, Vittorio Storraro and others, as well as documentaries on the Dalai Lama and various socio/cultural subjects. In 1985 he directed the music video ‘A Day’ for the band XYMOX on the 4AD label, leading him towards musical subjects. 1987 saw his short experimental films ‘Wagner‘s Ring’, a condensed version of Richard Wagner’s opera ‘The Ring of the Nibelungen’ in 3’50” conceived with John Cage; and ‘Stoperas 1/2’ which was created to be shown with Cage‘s ‘Europeras 1 & 2’. Collaborations with Cage continued with the conceptual film ‘Chessfilmnoise’ (1988), a documentary on Cage and Elliott Carter ‘Time Is Music’ (1988), and ‘From Zero’ (1995) in collaboration with Cage’s assistant Andrew Culver.

Scheffer’s films on music constitute an overview of the great composers of the 20th century — from ‘Conducting Mahler’ (1996) on the famous 1995 Mahler Festival in Amsterdam with Bernard Haitink, Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Chailly, Riccardo Muti and Sir Simon Rattle; to ‘Five Orchestral Pieces’ (1994) on Arnold Sch?nberg‘s work? ‘Funf Orchesterstucke, opus 16’ conducted by Michael Gielen, and ‘The Final Chorale’ (1990) on Igor Stravinsky’s ‘Symphony of Wind Instruments’ conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw. Furthermore documentaries including Louis Andriessen ‘The Road’, (1997), conducted by Peter E?tv?s; Luciano Berio ‘Voyage to Cythera’, (1999), on his ‘Sinfonia’ conducted by the composer; Pierre Boulez ‘éclat’ (1993) conducted by Ed Spanjaard, and (Helicopter String quartet, (1996) with Karlheinz Stockhausen and The Arditti String quartet.

The history of Electronic Music, from Stockhausen to DJ Spooky and Squarepusher, was the subject of ‘Sonic Acts’ (1998). Which was followed by three experimental projects searching for the influence of the digital medium in film and music: ‘Sonic Images’ (1998), ‘Sonic Fragments / The Poetics of Digital Fragmentation’ (1999), ‘Sonic Genetics ‘(2000).

In 1999, Scheffer made ‘Music for Airports’, ambient video on Brian Eno’s music of the same name as arranged by Bang on a Can founders Julia Wolfe, Michael Gordon, David Lang and Evan Ziporyn. The sprawling ‘In the Ocean’ (2001), on present day New York composers, features Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Elliott Carter, John Cage, Brian Eno and the Bang on a Can founders.

Scheffer is also working on several in depth films on specific composers — ‘Frank Zappa: The Present Day Composer Refuses to Die’ (2000) on Frank Zappa, in cooperation with the Zappa Family Trust, featuring The Mothers of Invention, Pierre Boulez and Ensemble Modern and the 90-minute documentary feature ‘Frank Zappa: Phaze II, The Big Note (2002), that was followed by a two part series? ‘Frank Zappa: A Pioneer of the Future of Music, part 1&2’ This ‘work in process’ based on Zappa’s idea of ‘conceptual continuity’ will be completed with a two hour cinema-version.

Scheffer has been following and filming Elliott Carter for 25 years; this culminated in a two part series for television ‘A Labyrinth of Memory’ (2003) and a feature length documentary ‘A Labyrinth of Time’ (2004), a unique portrait on the composer as well as an overview of the history of modernism in the 20th century.

In 2005 the feature documentary 'Tea' based on 'Tea-Opera' composed by Tan Dun, with Pierre Audi (Director) and Xiu Ying Li (libretto), had its world-premiere in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2006 a retrospective of his work and a Docu-Concert was exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

A feature documentary on composer Edgard Varése and a feature documentary on the Tehran Symphony Orchestra and its chief conductor Nader Mashayeki are planned. Currently he is writing a script for a trilogy based in China concerning the philosophy of Confucius and Lao-Tze. In the future a dramatic feature based on 'The Zauberflote' composed by Wolgang Amadeus Mozart is planned.

In addition to numerous critical and festival awards, Scheffer was honored with a complete retrospective of his films at the 2001 Holland Festival and the 2007 festival Wien Modern in Vienna, Austria.

CONDUCTING MAHLER.
1996 The Netherlands (Digibeta, color, 74 min)
Director: Frank Scheffer
Scenario: Donald Mitchell, Frank Scheffer
Camera: Melle van Essen, Joost van Gelder
Sound: Ben Zijlstra, Harold Jalving
Editors: Suzan Ijzermans, Menno Boerema
Mixer: Tom Stramrood
Producers: Frank Scheffer, Ton van der Lee

Synopsis:
In May 1995, a festival was organized in Amsterdam, with all of the Symphonies and Songs of the great composer Gustav Mahler. ‘Conducting Mahler’ is filmed during the rehearsals and is focusing on the soul of Mahler’s music – seen through the eyes of five of the most prominent conductors of our time: Claudio Abbado, Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Muti, Riccardo Chailly and Sir Simon Rattle. Being a conductor himself, Mahler noted down instructions in detail on how to conduct his music. Mahler’s incredible musical and historical knowledge, make it an enormous challenge for any conductor to perform his work.

A LABYRINTH OF TIME.
2004. The Netherlands. (digibeta, color, 90min)
Director: Frank Scheffer
Camera: Melle van Essen, Peter Mariouw Smit, Rene van der Eijk
Sound: Harold Jalving, Pieter Guyt, Ben Zijlstra
Editing: Riekje Ziengs
Producer: Frank Scheffer

Synopsis:
This unique documentary inimitably captures the essence of the music of Elliott Carter, widely considered the greatest living composer, as well as offering a view of the history of modernism. Carter has lived in New York City for almost a century and Scheffer makes imaginative use of the city as a bustling metaphor for Carter’s fascination with the perception and transformation of time. Interviews with, amongst others, Pierre Boulez, Daniel Barenboim, Charles Rosen, and, of course, Elliott Carter himself.




Helicopter String Quartet
75 minutes／ 1995
director: Frank Scheffer
camera: Joost van Gelder, Roelf-Jan Wentholt
editor: Jan-Wouter van Reijen
sound: Harold Jalving, Ben Zeilstra
co-producer: AVRO dutch TV
producers: Frank Scheffer / Ton van der Lee
Produced by Allegri film
Languages spoken: English, German, and Dutch

Karlheinz Stockhausen's Helikopter-Streichquartett is one of the most controversial and talked-about works of art in recent years. Composed for the Arditti Quartet and premiered at the 1995 Holland Festival, it involves the four members of a string quartet playing in four different helicopters flying through the air. The music the quartet plays is then sent to a central space and mixed at a sound board.

In his film Helicopter String Quartet, Frank Scheffer documents the complex preparations in the month leading up to the premiere of this work, as well as eliciting insights from the composer regarding how he conceived and executed it.

Stockhausen tells Scheffer, for example, that the idea for the work came to him in a dream he had of musicians being able to fly. He then produced a fascinatingly original score in which each instrument is notated in a different color, and in which the four string lines frequently jump from one staff to the other in order to imitate birds flying in different formations.

Stockhausen also analyzes the content of the work for Scheffer, in particular showing how the writing for the quartet is meant to merge with the sonic characteristics of the helicopters.

Scheffer goes behind the scenes and stage by stage, shows the enormous production needed to realize Helikopter-Streichquartett. The Dutch navy, for example, was commissioned to provide the helicopters and pilots. Stockhausen holds numerous rehearsals with the Arditti Quartet, coaching them on every possible performance detail. He personally handles all the matters of sound himself, even down to the final mixing at the concert. With one spectacular shot near the close of Helicopter String Quartet, Frank Scheffer captures the breathtaking poetry inherent in what he calls the "boy's dream" of Stockhausen. From a camera positioned inside a fifth helicopter, we see the string quartet flying in the skies above Amsterdam in a peaceful moment of almost unnerving freedom and release.



From Zero （The Group of Films）


NINETEEN QUESTIONS
1995 The Netherlands (Digibeta, color 15 min.)
Director: Frank Scheffer
Camera: Frans Bromet
Sound: Bert Flantua
Editor: Jan Wouter van Reijen
Producer: Frank Scheffer

Synopsis:
The legendary American composer John Cage answers nineteen questions that were asked by chance, using the ancient Chinese coin-tossing method of the I Ching. The subject of each question (a.o on Mathematics, Einstein, Death, Opera, Zen, Ronald Reagan, John Cage...) and the duration of each answer are determined by an I Ching? computer program. The answers - that oscillate between one and sixty seconds put of relief in a humoristic way a- shows Cage’s capacity to summarize in one statement a whole world.

FOURTEEN
20min. 1995
Credits:
Directors: Andrew Culver/Frank Scheffer
Camera: Joost van Gelder
Editor: Suzan Ijzermans
Sound: Ben Zijlstra/Michel van der Aa
Producer: Frank Scheffer

Synopsis:
The acclaimed Ives Ensemble perform Cage's piece of the same name. Filmed with multiple cameras using chance operations to determine the position, angle, focus and aperture settings of each shot-as well as to determine the editing process-make this a uniquely remarkable performance film. The extraordinary lighting was created by Andrew Culver, who did similar chance derived lighting plans for Cage's Europeras.

PAYING ATTENTION
10min. 1995
Credits:
Directors: Andrew Culver/Frank Scheffer
Camera: Joost van Gelder
Editor: Suzan Ijzermans
Sound: Ben Zijlstra/Michel van der Aa
Producer: Frank Scheffer

Synopsis:
Agreeing on a predetermined duration, Scheffer worked with the video portion and Culver the audio from an interview with Cage. They treated their parts independently; the video and audio were then reunited during the editing in the same spirit as John Cage/Merce Cunningham music and dance collaborations - where the two aspects are presented together for the first time in the performance.


OVERPOPULATION AND ART
25 min. 1994
Director: Frank Scheffer
Camera: Joost van Gelder
Editor: Suzan Ijzermans/ Jan Wouter van Reijen
Producer: Frank Scheffer

Synopsis:
The film connects the recording of the last conference of Cage, Overpopulation and Art, and one of most beautiful works of the composer: Rioanji, in version for voices and percussions. The visual part sample images of two important places in the life of the composer: Manhattan and Stony Point. Both scenes - one urban and another natural one is alternated and superposed, but the most peculiar aspect is than the movements of the camera use such graphical as in the Rioanji composition, whose score does not reproduce notes but fragments of curves molded in the profiles of rocks of the garden zen of the monastery of Rioanji.

4. EXPERIMENTAL AND SHORT STUDENT VIDEO SCREENINGS

《POPULAR DIGITAL VIDEO》Screening

Part One: Chinese Works
(Curator: Shi Yan; total length: 51 min.)

The stairs from Heaven
Director: Yuan Bo/Jiao Yan
Animation/Artistic/Experimental/9 min
Synopsis：With an artistic way to indicate the individual mind which is thinking about the life and values.The character is conceited, at the same time, he extremely need the approval from the society. He is struggling with both of them. Prize：POPULAR DV“Show Place”--The Special Prize of Jury, 2008

The last Holy Land
Director: Guan Linhai
Animation/7min
Synopsis ：On the earth which is destoryed by E.T,a girl is finding the last refuge.Finally she find out it and call for help,but the bullets from the refuge is shooting to her. Prize: POPULAR DV“Show Place”--The Best Animation，2008

Pass away
Director: Sun Weiwei (Tantan)
Experimental/5 min
Synopsis：Rcording the burning of some symbolic articles,on the process of their presenting , deconstruction as well as transformed mutually, you will watching the existence and vanishes of the life within the several minutes. Prize: POPULAR DV“Show Place”--The Best Experimental，2008

The city and the ghost
Director: Xu xiaomin
Artistic/2 min
Synopsis：The murky street, the faintly headlight, a pair of migration's canvas shoe, all of them make the night unpeaceful and turbulent. Without seeing anbody ,but you can actually feel one’s breath in the city.

Watch Quietly
Director: Shao Yi
Artistic/6 min
Synopsis：With the drafts ,“The wall of television monitors” conveyes a “fable” about the television medium. “TV” is a window which we looked the world through. TV already helped us to make the judgment. Receiving simply is what we can do.

Muppet
Director: Chen Xiaojian
Artistic/7min
Synopsis：One song, one mask, a man pulls a woman with the line. With the wooden expression , the woman is manipulated and controlled.Her body is struggling without a word , just like a puppet.

One night in Beijing
Director:Xu Ming
Fiction/10 min
Synopsis：In the beginning of the movie,With the documentary style, it give you a fresh viewing.It’s complete and afford food for thought,although it was the director’s first effort.

Reuse of the Public Space
Director: Liu Yanhui
Documentary/5 min
Synopsis：A familiar urban prospect——the broad street, the brand-new overpass, stands tall and erect street light.

Part Two: International Works
(Curator: Fu Wensili Total: 92min)

In the mirror of the sky
Mexico/ Fiction/Colour/35mm /1997/10 min
Director：Carlos Salces
Prize: The Clermont-Ferrand International Competition —Public prize, Media prize, 1999
Synopsis ：Luis, a peasant boy, fantasizes about catching an airplane reflected in a pond.

John
France/Black＆White/Fiction/35mm/1992
Time:19min
Director：Roberto Garzelli
Prize: The Clermont-Ferrand International Competition—Special Jury Mention，1993
Synopsis ：It's been quite a while now since Jane Clayton convinced her husband John, better known as Tarzan, to leave the jungle. Since then, they have settled somewhere in France...

The union makes the power
Norway/Fiction/Colour/35mm/2002/9 min
Director: Hans Petter Moland
Prize: The Clermont-Ferrand International Competition—Grand Prize，Youth Jury Prize,2003
Synopsis ：Eight old timers come upon a young woman stuck in a swamp. A short film inspired by the Arbeiderpartiet (the Labour Party), and a part of the collective feature film "Most People Live in China".

I am (not) Van Gogh
U.S.A/Experimental/Colour/2005/5min
Director: David Russo
Prize: The Clermont-Ferrand Labo Competition Selection，2006
Synopsis ：The whole works is just like a visual game.
…
On the line
Germany、Swiss/ Fiction/Colour/35mm/2007/30min
Director: Reto Caffi
Prize: The Clermont-Ferrand International Competition—Grand Prize,2008
Synopsis ：A department store security guard is racked by guilt after not helping someone who was being attacked in the subway.

Alice et Moi
Belgium/Black＆White/Fiction/35mm/2004/19min
Director: Micha Wald
Prize: The Clermont-Ferrand International Competition —Public Prize, Comedy Prize, 2005
Synopsis ：Simon has to drive his old aunt Mala and two of her friends, Lydia and Colette, to the seaside. While driving, he argues with his girlfriend Alice over the phone. The three women slowly but surely interfere. This, of course does not solve anything...


5. Student short video from China Fine Art Academy

Mom
Director: Zhou Xueping
20 min./ 2008

Filmmaker’s Statement:
This is my first real documentary film. Before I didn’t dare film my mom for fear she had aged and already had wrinkles on her face and calluses on her hands. I went back home to stay with my mother and film her happiness, complaints and dreams. Before this, I had never spent so much time with her, and I realized what a traditional woman from the countryside looks for in her life.


Bio: Zhou Xueping studied at Yangxing First Highschool in Shandong Province. Now, she is in her third year in the New Media Department of The China Academy of Art in Hangzhou.


March
Director: Wang Dan
19 min./ 2008

Filmmaker’s Statement:
Since my second year in college I have consciously tried to understand myself and to get accustomed with and realize the details of my life. But all this time I have not been clear about what kind of life I want. I discover myself more and more, which is important. So, during March 2008, in the method of writing a diary, I recorded the circumstances of my life.


Bio: Wang Dan was born in 1985 in Hezhe City in Juancheng County in Shangdong Province. Now she is a third year student in the New media Department of The China Academy of Art in Hangzhou.

6. Student short video: Public Space, Hangzhou, 2008
Four short videos were selected from student work in a documentary film course in The New Media Department of the China Fine Art Academy. Their theme is “Public Space”.
LP640 Lamborghini LP640, by Wang Jiajin, 5 min.
＃@％$, By Wang Dan, 5 min.
? by Yang Zhimin, 5 min.
The Days on the Cloud, by Zong Cheng, 5 min.


7. Young Documentary Filmmaker Training Project, 2008, Caochangdi Workstation
Caochangdi Workstation is an independent art space committed to documentary filmmaking and performance art. In 2007, to started the Young Documentary Filmmaker Training Project. it will launch a new training workshop over a period of one week, aiming to create a training and studying opportunity for young people committed to documentary filmmaking, in the hopes that they will be able to elevate their future work to a new level. There were 54 participants came from 15 cities of China for the workshop in May, 2007. The training project is going to the second edition this year. From May 1 to 5, 2008, the project is taken place in CCD Workstation.

The catch phrase “Documentary and Personal Expression” refers to the training offered by this workshop.  It emphasizes pursuing “an individual eye and a personal way” in terms of independent productions, as well as learning the skills to discover and produce through a hands-on approach.  The project rejects any attempt to copy other artist’s perspectives or to follow the beaten path.  Ideally, the project wishes to recruit young people who possess a strong desire to document, express and to dig deeper on the subject of documentary filmmaking.  Filmmaking should be his or her primary medium.

With the project in 2008, Dutch documentary filmmaker Frank Scheffer is invited to be the mentor with Wu Wenguang together. Participants of the project shall take part in workshops, in which they are supposed to watch and shoot, discuss and analyze in a large group or in smaller teams, and to explore possibilities for visual documentation of the reality as well as personal approaches to expressions through films. They should not expect to receive pure academic training.

The project’s participants are not expected to pay any tuition fee nor rent for the equipment they use during the training.  Those from outside Beijing may expect to pay for their own travel and accommodation expenses.   Within an entire week’s time, the participants will practice shooting and producing short videos and will take part in discussions. They will also watch and discuss recommended films and should be ready to discuss each of their film proposals.

More importantly, after the one week training program is completed, Caochangdi Workstation and it’s teachers shall assist the trainees to further develop their proposals. They will? provide them with further support for production and postproduction of the proposed documentary through various methods of support such as an email list-serve, an online forum, or instant chat on MSN. The support may also come in the form of another training workshop at Caochangdi for Proposal Development.

Since the Call for Applications was announced on March 15, 2008, the project has received 60 applications from 17 provinces.  While most of the applicants are related to filmmaking by profession, there are also some from other lines of work. This year we received applications from a graphic designer, an advertising professional, a commercial photographer, a small business owner, a civil servant and a white collar worker, to name but a few. Twenty-nine of the applicants are currently enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate program at Sun Yet-san University, Beijing Normal University, Yunnan Arts University, China Fine Art Academy, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing Film Academy, or Communication University of China, Peking University.

According to the initial plan, an evaluation panel consisting of Wu Wenguang, Zhang Yaxuan and Wu Yanhua would have selected candidates for the workshop. However, after careful consideration, the panel believed that making this selection was not realistic, seeing as any selection made on the basis of education, professional backgrounds or film proposals would not be fully justified or convincing.  The panel believes that the passion and commitment of the applicants are the critical elements upon which documentary filmmaking may start.  Furthermore, the three evaluators believe that the project’s goal is to provide young people who are passionate about documentary filmmaking with a space to share and grow.   Therefore, the evaluators chose not to make a selection of the applicants but to keep the project’s “door” wide open.  Anyone who was interested could still send an email for confirmation before participating in the events.

Eventually, forty of the applicants confirmed their participation in the project.

The project’s first training workshop will take place during the May Festival at Caochangdi Workstation. In this way, participants can benefit from the diverse art experiences the Festival has to offer:  documentaries, experimental shorts, dance videos, performances and discussions.

The week long training workshop will only be the start of the project.  Afterwards, it is important that the participants get down to real work in the field.  Caochangdi Workstation will continue its communication with and support for the participants and will organize more workshops, including the one on Proposal Development.