For many in contemporary China, the past is another country – and a hazy, dimly lit one at that. It’s not uncommon to meet young people in China who can recite every dynasty in the nation’s 5,000 year history, yet can barely muster more than a few lines about the Maoist era of the 1950s and 60s. Independent documentarian Hu Jie was no different – by his own admission he knew little about China’s recent past when he stumbled upon the story of the dissident Lin Zhao, executed in 1968 for her outspoken criticism of Mao’s totalitarian ways. As Hu travelled the length and breadth of China looking for those who knew Lin, he felt like he had “found the door of history, opened it and walked in.” The stories he uncovered have been fuelling his filmmaking ever since.

In August two of Hu Jie’s best-known works, Searching for Lin Zhao’s Soul (2004) and Though I Am Gone (2006) will screen at the Melbourne International Film Festival, as part of the program “Street Level Visions: Chinese Independent Docos”. This is a rare chance for Australian audiences to see some of the most challenging films coming out of contemporary China.

Searching for Lin Zhao’s Soul uses interviews with many of Lin’s friends and associates to trace the young writer’s journey from an ardent supporter of Mao’s revolution to an impassioned dissident imprisoned in Shanghai. When she was denied writing materials in jail, Lin composed thousands of words of essays and poems using her own blood. Though I Am Gone tells the story of Bian Zhongyun, the deputy headmistress of a prominent Beijing girl’s school attended by many daughters of the party elite, who was beaten to death by her own student in the opening weeks of the Cultural Revolution in August 1966. Incredibly, Bian’s husband secretly photographed the events leading up to her death and his wife’s battered corpse – images he reveals to Hu Jie’s lens in the course of recounting his wife’s story.

In March 2010 I was privileged to interview Hu Jie via phone at his home in Nanjing for an article in RealTime. It’s an indication of the enduring sensitivity of China’s Maoist past that our conversation was interrupted by police monitoring Hu’s calls. Nevertheless, he persisted with the interview, and I’d like to thank him for taking the time and associated risks to speak to me.

To celebrate the screening of Hu Jie’s films in Melbourne this August, ArtSpace China presents the full 2010 interview for the first time. Thanks to my translator during the interview, who has asked to remain anonymous.

In addition to being an artist, curator and writer China’s cultural renaissance man Ou Ning is also an acclaimed documentary filmmaker. After making the experimental San Yuan Li in 2003 with Cao Fei and other members of the U-theque collective in Guangzhou, Ou Ning relocated to China’s capital, where he made Meishi St (2006) about the demolition of one of Beijing’s oldest areas in the lead-up to the 2008 Olympics.

Meishi St will play in the Street Level Visions: Chinese Independent Documentary program screening as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) next month (see previous post), and Ou Ning will be in town for post-film Q&As and other public appearances.

To time with this event, we are reproducing this interview conducted by film writer and curator of the Street level Vision program, Dan Edwards, first published on the dGenerate Films website. Originally held in March 2010, the discussion contains a wealth of fascinating material not only on Ou’s background, but also the rise of China’s “digital” documentary generation.

Thanks to Ou Ning for his time and for speaking so openly about some controversial matters, and to Edwards and dGenerate for the piece. The interview was conducted mostly in English.

For the lucky ducks in Melbourne …

This year’s Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) includes a special program of films selected from the past decade of China’s digital documentary boom. Curated by Dan Edwards, ‘Street Level Visions: Chinese indie docos’ cuts through the clichés of nightly news bulletins to show us China from the ground-up, through the eyes of some of the nation’s bravest filmmakers.

The program includes landmark films such as Zhao Liang’s Petition, Ou Ning’s Meishi Street, Hu Jie’s Searching for Lin Zhao’s Soul, and the more recent Besieged by Waste by Wang Jiuliang, among others. Filmmakers, Ou Ning and Wang Jiuliang will also be in town for post-film Q&As and other events.

See the MIFF website for more on the films and session times. And spread the word.

Liao Yiwu is best-known for his book The Corpse Walker, a colourful collection of interviews with oddballs, crooks, hustlers, toilet-attendants, ex-landlords, so-called rightists, garbage-collectors, and a variety of others whose voices are rarely heard in mainstream Chinese history. First published in Taiwan in 2001, and later in a variety of languages, The Corpse Walker quickly became a bestseller in the West, its success fanned along by the news of the book’s banning in China and Liao’s uncomfortable political position back home .

Liao’s recent book, God is Red, is another collection of interviews, this time with elderly Chinese Christians whose faith has brought them into conflict with the state. Published to an eager audience in the West, God is Red will be supported with author tours and book signings not previously possible, since in July 2011 – after seventeen unsuccessful attempts to leave China – Liao Yiwu secretly emigrated to Germany.

Cinema Alley 2011
4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art
Photo: Susannah Wimberley

The material of film and video is light, so we usually create darkened rooms in which to experience its art. 4A’s Cinema Alley however makes use of the night, erecting a large outdoor screen in Sydney’s Parker St for one evening each Chinese New Year Festival. Now in its third year, the event transforms this Chinatown backstreet into an open-air cinema and screens a selection of Chinese video art curated by 4A Director, Aaron Seeto. 4A’s own ‘laneway project,’ Cinema Alley is also a result of the gallery’s focus on community engagement, extending outdoors from the gallery and, this year, including screenings from their 2010 Animation Project with the local community.

Tomorrow is Day One of The China Independent Film Festival (CIFF), running from 21-25 October across eight university campuses in Nanjing. This is the festival’s seventh year and based on recent years’ attendance about 12,000 people are expected to attend.

As usual, this year’s CIFF program includes drama and documentary, along with art films and archival projects that would rarely (if ever) be shown in mainstream venues. These films have all been made outside the commercial film system and are all screened in the CIFF free of charge.

I managed to track down Festival President, Professor Zhang Xianmin, just days before the opening of CIFF. Zhang believes we are living in a historic time for Chinese independent cinema – one that will probably be remembered as its greatest moment. Don’t you wish you were at the festival? Read on for an insight if you’re not.

dGenerate Films is a US-based distributor of independent contemporary Chinese cinema, with a catalogue drawn from the salons, festivals and personal distribution networks of China’s underground film scene. Since their inception in 2008, they’ve built a catalogue of around thirty titles and have been instrumental in increasing the profile of independent Chinese cinema, both overseas and within China itself. They also have a cracking website with critical reviews and commentary on contemporary Chinese cinema in general.
I recently spoke with Kevin Lee, dGenerate’s Vice President of Programming and Education, about this burgeoning underground film scene, the documentary impulse, and the power of cheap technology.