Documentary Programme£º
Graduation Film works of Beijing Film Academy
Organizer: Caochangdi Workstation
Support:
Beijing Storm
Website of China Independent Documentary Archives
Popular DV Magazine
Canon£¨China£©Co., Ltd.-Consumer Imaging & Information Group
Curator: Hu Liubin
Artist director: Wu Wenguang
Executive producer: Mao Ran
Project coordinator: Zong Yubin
Graphic design: Pei Yanfeng
Design assistants: Xiong Jiang, Pei Yanfeng
Date: December 8- December 10, 2006
Venue: Caochangdi Workstation
Curator's Words
In the autumn of 2003, a group of young people from all over China gathered in Beijing Film Academy. Among them are teachers, journalists, advertisers and even doctors. They all come for one purpose: to make documentary to express their opinions and to seek truth in life. They never give up this attempt during 3 years' study. Fortunately, with the cameras, they were able to walk out of the ivory tower and turn their gazes to a broader society. I am very proud to be one of them.
We all come for documentaries but we have different viewpoint as to what is documentary. Tian Miao thinks documentary is to record, which gives his film some anthropological perception. Fan Jian and Wang Changjiang think documentary should not lose its sociological purpose, and they both use their cameras to observe a group of farmers who live in the city; what they concerned is social problems and people's living status. Gu Yaping shoots some women artists, accessing them, observing them, and exploring them, but who can say she is not gazing at an image of herself through the lens of camera? As a Taiwanese, Chung Chuan discusses Cross-Straits Relations and personal identifications in his film, bridging a gap between personal factors and political visions. Wang Hao used to be a doctor, and he draws doctors' living status in Chinese hospital in a very static and impersonal way. He insists documentary, like chronicle, should provide organized facts, not subjective views. On the contrary, Luo Shasha tries to tell that ¡°Academic documentary¡± is not necessarily dull. In her opinion, documentary, as a way to mirror this world, can be sensuously pleasant and emotionally inspiring.
What we valued most are the differentiations among us. We dare not say we have understood what real documentary is. But after 3 years' trying, bumping and daring attempting, the life before our camera is much more real and vivid. Anyway, documentary is a way of recording, not the purpose.
We hope to appear as a group in this exhibition, to memorize the 3 years' life in Beijing Film Academy. We also hope the echoes from the exhibition can warm us, encourage us and drive us. We know we are not lonely .Then; we¡¯ll go on holding the camera, to freeze the time, to express, to communicate, to explore.
Hu Liubin
December,2006
1£®My Dear£¨Dec.8 19:10-20:35£©
Director/photographer/editor: Gu Yaping
Length: 84mins
Production: 2006
Subtitles: Chinese&English
Synopsis:
My Dear shows a leading character who pursues independent life and keeps on seeking her self in the inner conflict, portrays an ecological picture about several urban women in artistic circles through showing their struggles inside and outside of marriage¡¢conflicts between ideal and reality confusion in their deep hearts and discord and care among them. My Dear is a female documentary by both exploring other¡¯s inside world and completing the self-seeking process of the author.
Gu Yaping, born in 1976£¬ graduated from Directing Department of Beijing Film Academy as a Master student in 2006. I graduated from Economic Management Department of Wu Han University as a bachelor student. I worked in Shanxi Television Station as a program director. Main works: All the Children under the Sun 40min, My Dear 84min, A Few Days in Yokohama 25min.
2£®The Affair of Three Cities (Dec. 9 12:30-14:30)
Director£ºChung Chuan
Cinematographer£ºChung Chuan, Xu Jian, Alison Guo
Editor£ºChung Chuan
Animation£ºChen Jiawei
Music£ºSeeyou@Sitar / http://www.wretch.cc/blog/seeyouband
Length£º116mins
production: 2004£2006
Synopsis:
The three cities Taipei, Beijing and Tokyo have been related by their past and their present and may also by their future. The relationship between them is vague but somehow crystal clear just like two points can form a straight-line while three points may be extended to form a circle.
The director have been to many cities of China during two years. He recorded the historical conflicts between the two sides of the Straits by shooting the life of the simple common people. The story begins from the summer of 2004, in which the director recorded two baseball games in two cities across the Straits. What is interesting is that the two teams both confront the Japanese team. Though the results of the game are the same , the attitudes of them are totally different. In this movie, the technique of comparison is used to present the problems between the two sides of the Straits. Also in this movie, the vagueness is presented in different times and spaces, and the story happened in Tokyo just witnesses all the past conflicts burst in this documentary.
Meanwhile, the director shot three stories about seeking Taiwan in China mainland. The first story is about finding Taiwan in China. It records a story of a group of fans from Beijing, China, who dearly loved the Taiwan singer A-Mei and some incidents that happened when they followed her. The second story is about a village couple from Fen Yang in Shanxi province who took their pictures before the marriage ceremony and their spark of love. The couple got married in their hometown one month later, at the same time they found Taiwan image existing everywhere in their hometown. The third story is about a little girl who entered the entertainment business because of a Taiwan idle. She was haunted by her memory after the changing of identity and time several years later.
Chung Chuan, born in Taibei in 1979,has been working in the advertising industry as a visual creator in Beijing since 2002,finished the postgraduate course in Directing Department of BFA in 2006,as his graduating work, The Affair of Three Cities reflects his living experiences and two different life styles across Taiwan Straits.
3£®Dancing in the City (Dec.9 14:40-16:40)
Director: Fan Jian
Cameramen: Fan Jian, An Tongqing
Editors: Fan Jian, Li Yueyan
Length: 118 mins.
Produced: 2006
Synopsis
An idealist who just wants to speak for Chinese farmers; a young guy from countryside who makes great efforts for entering the urban life; a girl who shuttles between the city and the village; a rebel figure who seems a mixture of money and literature. Flowing the blood of villages in all their bodies, they dance in the city with the tied spirits. They return to their hometowns again and again, and flee from there soon each time. They try and try their best to get out of the chains in their spirits but go back and back to what they are. Where is home? Where is the way to the habitat for the wandering souls? In a forest of reinforced concrete, they go forward in haste, sign in silence.
Fan Jian, born in 1977 in Ningxia province. Graduated from Journalism College in Wuhan University in 1999; In 2006, finished his M. A. candidate study in Directing Department of BFA. Since 2003 he has been making documentary programs for CCTV, in which Grapes of Wrath won the Chinese Documentary Prize. He tried to make independent documentary also from then on, SARS Reflection(43mins) which was finished in 2003 screened in China-France Culture Interflow Image Exhibition in Leon; Electioneering(93mins) finished in 2004;as a graduating work, Dancing in the City has been selected by IDFA in 2006.
4£®The School at City Fringe (Dec.9 17:10-18:15)
Director/photographer/editor:
Length: 55mins
Production: 2006
Subtitles: Chinese & English
Synopsis
The School at City Fringe is about a School for migrant workers¡¯ children, locating in the suburban Beijing. It¡¯s about the life of teachers and students of the school in the year of 2005. This kind of schools recruits children who don¡¯t have the identity of permanent residence of Beijing. These children are forbidden to enter a public free of charge school, and have to pay for their tuition in this simple and crude school. Likewise, teachers in this school work harder and get lower paid than the public school.
After a joyful dinner on the New Year¡¯s Day, teachers find that they still don¡¯t get their guerdon which was guaranteed by the principal before. On the day the semester ends, the teachers gather again. Some of them start to worry about their children¡¯s education. They believe it¡¯s good for the children to be well educated in any case, because they have to stand on their own feet one day.
Wang Chang-jiang, born in Xi¡¯an, Shaanxi Province, 1973. He pursued his master degree in Beijing Film Academy from 2003 to 2006, majoring documentary. In 2004, he finished the documentary The Chronicle of Country Construction. From April, 2005 to January, 2006, Wang made his second work The School at City Fringe.
5£®The Blind Singers of Taihang (Dec.9 19:00-20:40)
Director:Tian Miao
Photographer:Tian Miao,Zhao Liang
Editor:Long Yan,Tian Miao
Length: 100mins
Production: 2006
Subtitles: Chinese & English
Synopsis:
This one hundred minutes documentary focuses on a disabled troupe living in Shanxi Province, China, in the remote country villages surrounded by Taihang Mountains. All the members of this troupe are either blind or limb disabled, even both. This troupe, the Blindmen Propaganda Team of Zuoquan County, was founded in 1930s, and has been serving their music and songs to the local villagers, with their vulnerable bodies and their strong minds. The troupe not only carries and disseminates the traditional folk art, but also spreads tidings from outside world.
This film reveals their daily life in an unvarnished and easy way, tells the stories behind those weather-beaten faces. It expresses their sadness and happiness, through their most touching music and voice.
Tian Miao, born in 1980, graduated from Beijing Film Academy in the summer of 2006, with a master degree in directing. The director used to study science in college, and make TV programs before entering BFA. The Blind Singers of Taihang is the director¡¯s first full length documentary, and also his diploma work.
6£®The Pediatrics Department (Dec. 10 13:00-14:40)
Director/photographer/editor: Wang Hao
Length: 104mins
Production: 2005
Subtitles: Chinese/English
Synopsis
In September 2004, three doctors quitted their jobs from Pediatrics Department of Anhui Ningguo People¡¯s Hospital and went to work in a private hospital.The remaining 7 doctors had to manage 41 in-patients as well as all the work in out-patient department.
Led by Department director, they fight a tiresome war against the intense competition, worsening professional environment and bureaucracy of the hospital administration.
Wang Hao, male, was born in Ningguo Anhui, China. after graduating from a medical college and working in Ningguo People¡¯s hospital for 3 years, he became a graduate student in Beijing Film Academy, majored in Documentary. This is his first work.
7£®A Travel of Thousands of Miles (Dec.10 15:10-15:50)
Director/photographer/editor: Luo Shasha
Length: 39mins
Production: 2005
Chinese subtitles
Synopsis
This documentary is the story about two men. It¡¯s about the dribs and drabs of Chinese director Zhang Yimou and Japanese actor Ken Takakura, while they were shooting the film Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles.
Luo Shasha, graduated from Dept. of Film Directing, Beijing Film Academy in 2002, receiving a Bachelor Degree in Documentary. After that, she received a master degree in the same major in the year of 2006.
Her major film works includes: the Reconciliation of General and Prime Minister, Grandmother, A Travel of Thousands of Miles and Reveal: Curse of the Golden Flower.
8£®A Girl from the Children¡¯s Village (Dec. 10, 16:00-17:25)
Director:Hu Liubin
Photographer:Hu Liubin,Tian Miao,Chen Tao
Editor:Hu Liubin,Cao Chen,Fang Lei
Length: 83mins
Production: 2005-2006
Subtitles: Chinese & English
Synopsis:
When Yang was at the age of 13, her father was sent to prison. The Children¡¯s Village started to take care of her and gave her an opportunity for some education. The children who live at The Children's Village are the sons and daughters of hardened criminals but Yang was not welcomed there. Her hopes were to one day leave this place. Hoping that day would arrive soon.Before reaching her 18th birthday, Yang left The Children's Village. Just after celebrating her 18th birthday, she suddenly, without notice, vanished. Not one person knew of her whereabouts. The director of this documentary carried his camera, hoping that he would be able to find her. He traced any thread that might lead him to her. Little by little through this process he was able to understand Yang various choices.
Hu LiuBin, born in the 1970s. After receiving a BA in education, was admitted by the directing department of Beijing Film Academy and graduated with a master¡¯s degree. Worked as a reporter, teacher, TV commercial Director. Filmed MV, commercials and independent short fiction films. This is his second feature documentary.
9.Documentary Forum: ¡°Documentaries of Beijing Film Academy¡±
P.S.
1£ºThe Screening is free of tickets and the filmmaker will discuss with the audience after each film
2£ºVisitors can eat meals at the cafeteria of CCD Workstation (not for free)
3£ºAddress of CCD Workstation : Chaoyang district caochangdi 105
Inquiry Telephone Number:64336143
4: Traffic information: You can take bus 402/813/909/418 to CCD Workstation |