In Search of Reality I: 2008 Columbia University Contemporary Chinese Independent Documentary Film Festival
REEL CHINA 4th Documentary Biennial
Co-sponsors: Columbia University Arts Initiative, Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures; NYU's Center for Religion and Media, Cinema Studies Department at Tisch School of the Arts

Click here for filmmaker and panelist bios.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24

2:00 PM - 2:15 PM
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS:
Gregory Mosher, Weihong Bao

2:15 PM - 4:15 PM
SCREENING OF BING AI (dir. Feng Yan)
114 minutes - 2007 - English subtitles

Shot over the course of ten years, this poignant documentary brings us into a hillside farming community in Hubei, at the edges of the Yangtze River. Director Feng Yan presents a slice of life film featuring the staunch, maternal Zhang Bing'ai as a voice for the 1.13 million citizens dislocated by the massive Three Gorges Dam project. Bing'ai is determined to resist official pressure to abandon her home, and is keen on cultivating a stable family life to support her husband and children. Meditative, sometimes folkloric, and unflinchingly authentic, Bing'ai is depicted through her quotidian life of manual labor as well as her intimate memories of younger days. Her journey brings the scope of the Three Gorges Dam to a deeply personal level, in an unapologetic portrayal of rural life in contemporary China.

Winner, Ogawa Shinsuke Prize - Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (2007)

4:30 PM - 6:00 PM
PANEL DISCUSSION

Moderated by Professor Weihong Bao. Featuring:

• Lydia Liu - Wun Tsun Tam Professor in the Humanities (Department of East Asian Languages & Cultures)
• Rosalind Morris - Professor (Department of Anthropology)
• Richard Peña - Professor (School of the Arts - Film Division)
• Zhu Rikun - Independent Film Curator and Critic

8:00 PM - 9:30 PM
SCREENING OF MY DEAR (QIN AI DE) (dir. Gu Yaping)
82 minutes - 2007 - English subtitles

Wenzi seeks to create a new life for herself after a divorce, three years of study in the U.S., and a stage of wandering through spas, coffee shops, and bars in Beijing. With American dollars brought back from her time abroad, she establishes 3/4 Art Gallery in Beijing's increasingly trendy and commercialized 798 art district. As she works to support members of the local art scene and keep her gallery afloat, she takes an interest in the paintings of a local artist, Kaifei, and organizes an exhibition of her work in the gallery. Through director Gu Yaping's interactions with Wenzi and her vibrant circle of female artists and intellectuals in Beijing, the film offers insight into the ideals and realities of China's contemporary art world, as well as the issues that face independent urban women in China today.

Official Selection - Oxdox: MK International Documentary Film Festival (2007)
Nominated for competition - 2007 Yunnan Multi Culture Visual Festival

9:30 PM - 10:00 PM
Q&A WITH DIRECTOR GU YAPING

 

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25

2:00 PM-3:00 PM
SCREENING OF PAINTING FOR THE REVOLUTION - PEASANTS' PAINTINGS FROM HU COUNTY, CHINA (dirs. Hu Jie & Ai Xiaoming)
56 minutes - 2005 - English subtitles

Hu County, located in suburban Xi'an, shot to fame during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution for the paintings produced by its proletariat citizens. Directors Hu Jie and Ai Xiaoming revisit this rural landscape to interview former peasant painters and create a film steeped in the dramas of history as much as present day life. Comparisons of the political language, artistic imagination, and paintings themselves of different eras serve to engage the audience in a better understanding of Hu County's citizens, as well as evoke a research interest in regard to Cultural Revolution propaganda painting. Renowned art critic Chen Danqing offers commentary on these phenomena in connection with the Leftist movement.

3:15 PM - 3:45 PM
Q&A WITH DIRECTOR HU JIE

4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
SCREENING OF WE ARE THE ... OF COMMUNISM (WOMEN SHI GONGCHAN ZHUYI SHENGLUEHAO) (dir. Cui Zi'en)
94 minutes - 2007 - English subtitles

When the local government closes the Yuanhai Migrant School for unknown reasons and the school administrators disappear unannounced, the remaining teachers and students are forced to continue schooling on their own. Holding classes in an abandoned factory, the fleeting spaces of small classrooms, and the homes of their unpaid teachers, the students struggle for their education and their futures. Despite the protest raised by the students, teachers, and parents, the school remains closed and the state of their education in the following term falls into uncertainty. Told through the personal narratives of individual students, director Cui Zi'en captures the dreams of the Yuanhai students as he observes their fight against the corruption and disorder of local officials and police.

5:30 PM - 6:00 PM
Q&A WITH DIRECTOR CUI ZI'EN

7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
SCREENING OF WHO IS HAO RAN (SHEI SHI HAO RAN) (dir. Yang Yishu)
70 minutes - 2006 - English subtitles

Who is Hao Ran follows a group of delinquent teenage boys who prowl the streets of their hometown Dagong looking for trouble. Having in common a disinterest in education and endless machismo, they spend their days and nights idling together - occasionally hunting for a fellow student Hao Ran, deemed the common enemy. Hao Ran never appears in the film, becoming instead a symbol of the group's potential for violence, lack of direction, and desperation. Fraught with aimlessness and adolescent rebellion, this documentary illuminates a rarely seen underbelly of Chinese society.

Click here for filmmaker and panelist bios.