the erosion of blue

Children's Village

Zou Xueping continues to interview old people in her village, this time with the help of local children. They start collecting names and money to erect a memorial for the victims of the famine.

Satiated Village

It is the director's second documentary of "my village" series since she got involved with the "Folk Memory Project". She returned to her hometown to shoot footage, recording the realities she encountered in her search for memories. Her biggest question is: after experiencing the disaster of the tragic famine fifty years ago, the villagers now are not short of food, and are living a better life than before, but is the spirit of this village still starving?

The Starving Village

This is my second documentary film, and it is fully composed of old people. One woman, nearing 80, is living out the last two years of her life. From when she is still using a cane to walk, to when she becomes paralyzed. This is my grandmother. We also see other elderly people from the village, their daily activities, the tales of their starvation from 50 years ago.

River Straying

A man who was hiding for 7 years to avoid creditors has embarked on his journey home because of the death of his mother. On the way back home, the childhood memories stroke him constantly just like dreams. In search of a notebook full of poems written for his ex-wife, he went to the former factory to find an old friend. Elsewhere in the city, three senior students are talking about their future plans. All the wandering man under the bridge, the little boy in his childhood and the young senior students, imperceptibly but inexorably are linked together by the river, and the memory has been revived.....

Umbrella

Workers, peasants, soldiers, students and merchants were five groups of Chinese society in the 1950s, after the so-called elimination of the exploited class. Borrowing this concept, the umbrella is taken as the clue to rediscover changes in various social classes after the economic reform, and to analyze the social problems in China. Workers making umbrellas, merchants selling umbrellas, students looking for jobs in the rain. Umbrella is used as a metaphor that can be seen everywhere. As the raindrop, what we see is sometimes clear, sometimes untraceable.

Springtime in Wushan

Zhang Ming went back to his hometown Wushan to record the last images before it being changed forever by the upcoming Three Gorges Dam.

The Love Dog

Originally conceived as the film for government propaganda but couldn't pass the censorship. Five punks found Dong Jianguo, a millionaire wearing the dog chain being trapped in the trunk. They kidnapped the millionaire and started to konw the love story between Dong Jianguo and a woman called Bobo.

Rock and Cliff: The Geological Surface of Horn Town

Video essay ‘Rock and Cliff' investigates the creation of Horn Town, a new model village and centre of large scale tourist development, and the experiences of rural residents moved there through government-led displacement. Horn Town is located in Wulong, a rural district near the Three Gorges Dam administered by the Chongqing municipality (a city of 30 million people). Narrated in the style of a science documentary but using local Chongqing dialect, the video brings a geological and topographical perspective to types of 'rocks' found in the area,from mythological stones from a mountain cliff, to ruins of the original settlement, to a stone sculpture from a dubious 'Land Art Biennial', in order to address issues of land acquisition, top-down development and spatial politic.

Village Diary

Veteran's Letters to Home

China Gate

"China Gate" tells the story of young Chinese fight to change their fate through studying. Right before dawn, students in Huining have already started their self-studying session; hard working youngsters have filled up the space of school ground. This is one of the most poverty-stricken Counties in Western China; here people's only hope is in education, as the way to change their social status. Therefore all their effort point towards the College Entrance Examination, the process is like going through a gate, those who pass can study at urban Universities, and have the chance to build a better life. During the same winter season in Beijing, a graduate student faces a big decision. Should he keep trying to survive in the big city or get back to his countryside home? The exhausted faces at the Beijing underground seem to be revealing the truth about their distance in between. The student comes to see the flag ceremony at Tiananmen Square, where the pulsing symbol of the nation lies.

We Outlaws

By day Chen Shi works in a textiles factory and at night dons a red dress and takes to the dance hall. We Outlaws is the story of just one of countless Trans and non-binary people who lived their lives in secret during an era of strict governmental prohibition, their very existence a crime.

China. The Arts – The People

China marks the beginning of the extensive Asian theme in Ottinger’s filmography and is her first travelogue. Her observant eye is interested in anything from Sichuan opera and the Beijing Film Studio to the production of candy and sounds of bicycle bells.

The Iron Ministry

Filmed over three years on China’s railways, The Iron Ministry traces the vast interiors of a country on the move: flesh and metal, clangs and squeals, light and dark, and language and gesture. Scores of rail journeys come together into one, capturing the thrills and anxieties of social and technological transformation. The Iron Ministry immerses audiences in fleeting relationships and uneasy encounters between humans and machines on what will soon be the world’s largest railway network.

Shattered

A microcosm of China past and present flows through Xu Tong’s intimate docu “Shattered,” in which the maverick indie filmmaker continues to refine his techniques and concerns shown in his previous “Wheat Harvest” and “Fortune Teller.”

Twenty Two

Follow the lives of the elderly survivors who were forced into sex slavery as “Comfort Women” by the Japanese during World War II. At the time of filming, only 22 of these women were still alive to tell their story. Through their own personal histories and perspectives, they tell a tale that should never be forgotten to generations unaware of the brutalization that occurred.

This Worldly Life

This film tells the story of the temple being planned as a scenic spot, the master leaves, the fake monk is in charge, and the confused monk He Shuangquan chooses to go back to the vulgar and adapt to the society. Old friends brought him into the world, tasted all the wine and taste, and the precepts were broken one by one. Faith was shocked because of desire, and the people around him had no choice but to deal with beliefs and values.

The Dialogue

Interviews with Dalai Lama and some Chinese intellectuals about Tibet/China relations and related issues.

Shanghai Youth

As a special generation born in the New China, the hundreds of thousands of educated youth from Shanghai went through enormous hardship during their work in Xinjiang from 1963 to 1966. Because of the specific historical conditions and context, they have been strikingly stamped with the mark of the times and have had to struggle to understand the relationship between themselves and the nation.

Papa Rainbow

In China, most families have difficulties facing their lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender (LGBT) children. They have to contend with common social beliefs that homosexuality is shameful, abnormal, a perverted condition caused by deviant family relationships. Many parents see their kids as their property, and fathers often assert their authority to ensure that no harm comes to the family reputation. The documentary 'Papa Rainbow' features six Chinese fathers who talk openly and freely about their experiences with their LGBT children. Speaking out against discrimination and stigma, they redefine what it means to protect a household. They fully embrace their kids for who they are, and become pioneer activists fighting for an equal and diverse society.