Free, Public Film Screenings at the University of Technology, Sydney
1-2 June 2012
7-8 June 2012
All screenings will take place at the UTS City Campus, Building 2, Room 4.11. MAP (opens an external site)
Please note the new screening program for Saturday 2 June and Friday 8 June.
For video trailers and further details on the films to be shown, visit "Seeing China" on Facebook.
Independent documentary film production inside the People's Republic of China has flourished in the past twenty years and shows no signs of abating, despite increased public and political attention to Chinese flimmakers and their projects. Over the past ten years, the Yunnan Multi Culture Visual Festival, held biennially in Kunming, Yunnan Province, has established itself as a dynamic space and place for discovering and debating Chinese independent documentary film.
The UTS China Research Centre, with generous support from the Australian Centre on China in the World Resources Grant program, is excited to present a series of public film screenings and discussions of recent Chinese independent documentary film. "Seeing China" will explore the range of contemporary practices in documentary filmmaking in China today with screenings of recent films selected from the Yunfest catalogue. We are especially pleased to include two short works by Tibetan filmmakers, drawn from the "Participatory Visual Education" strand of the Yunfest program. These films were produced as part of rural, community media training projects organized by the Bama Mountain Culture Research Institute (Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences), Nyanpo Yuzee Environmental Protection Association, and Shan Shui Conservation Centre.
Post-film discussions will be led by our invited scholars: Mr Li Xin (Lecturer in Media Arts at the Yunnan Arts Institute), and Dr Luke Robinson (Lecturer in Film Studies, University of Nottingham; author of the forthcoming monograph: Independent Chinese Documentary: From the Studio to the Street, to be published by Palgrave).
For more information on Yunfest, visit the Yunfest website (opens an external site).
Film Screenings (Subject to Change)
Friday, 1 June 2012 - 6:30pm
When the Bough Breaks, by Ji Dan, 2011
148 Minutes
Synopsis: Not long ago, Beijing's Daxing District used to be filled with landfills out of which neighbouring scavengers eked a living. With the tumor-like spread of skyscrapers and subway stations in Beijing's recent urban development, the landfills have been filled, and the bright lights of the city shine upon them. Only one wobbly little shack still stands against the winds of change. This film documents one stormy year in the lives of its inhabitants.
Selected Past Screenings
Millennium International Documentary Film Festival, Brussels, Belgium, 2012 - Winner Objectif d'Or
Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA, 2012
International Film Festival Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2012
Yunnan Multi Culture Visual Festival, Kunming, China, 2011
Interview with Ji Dan (opens an external site).
Saturday, 2 June 2012 - TWO SESSIONS, 2:30pm and 6:30pm
2:30pm - SESSION ONE
Two Films
The Wonders of Water, by Wangta, 2009
19 Minutes
Synopsis: Using poetic filmic language, The Wonders of Water tells of the beliefs and attitudes about water held by the Tibetans of Yunnan. [Filmmaker Wangta was a Tibetan villager from Jisha, near Zhongdian. Former truck driver and farmer Wangta picked up a camera for the first time when he took part in the Through Their Eyes - Nature and Culture Documentation Project training workshop organised by Shan Shui Conservation Centre, producing his first film, Jisha Chronicles, which documented environmental deterioration found near his home.]
Past Screenings:
Yunnan Multi Culture Visual Festival, Kunming, China, 2011
World Expo Shanghai - Yunnan Province Pavilion, China, 2010
Followed immediately by
Snippets, by Yan Junjie, 2005
84 minutes
Synopsis: This film takes footage of my band, friends, college, home, romance and personal life from 2001-2005. I took these to make an experiment: to use documentary to find an answer to life, or to use one's own life to search for documentary. This is how Snippets was born.
This can't be called a documentary in the strictest sense. What is a true documentary anyway? I'll leave that question for the adults to research.
As my graduation piece, I finally finished a piece on "using film to search for the self."
Selected Past Screenings:
Munich International Documentary Film Festival, Germany, 2006
Göttingen International Ethnographic Film Festival, Germany, 2006
Yunnan Multi Culture Visual Festival, Kunming, China, 2007
6:30pm
Apuda, by He Yuan, 2011
145 minutes
Synopsis: Apuda is a slightly mentally disabled midde-aged man who approaches the world with childlike innocence. He lives with his elderly father who loves him dearly. Over the years, father and son have come to depend on each other.
As summer approaches and the apples ripen, we find Apuda taking over the care of his father's orchard. As a bird of ill-omen cries out high in the sky, Apuda begins to worry. He hurries through the green forest to his home where father lies in bed, slowly fading away.
Apuda spends every minute of the day tending to his ailing father, never leaving his side, seeing to his every need and caring for him in his own, special way. He affectionately helps him dress and bathe, lights his cigarettes, turns him over in bed and chats about the latest news about family and neighbours. While Apuda becomes increasingly troubled by his father's ominous lack of appetite, his father serenely awaits his fate, for Naxi legend tells of a period of trials before reaching the land of one's ancestors.
The elderly man keeps reminding his son that sooner or later, he will pass away. Unable to express his feelings, Apuda can only collect his thoughts by the fireside in sadness.
Selected Past Screenings:
International Film Festival Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 2012
Vancouver International Film Festival, Canada, 2011
Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, Japan, 2011 - Competition Winner
Yunnan Multi Culture Visual Festival, Kunming, China, 2011 - Competition Winner
Review of Apuda (opens an external site).
Thursday, 7 June 2012 - 6:00pm (Note earlier start time)
Dr Ma's Country Clinic, by Cong Feng, 2008
215 minutes
Synopsis: In the arid mountains of the remote and inaccessible Huangyangchuan, Gansu Province, a simple small countryside clinic welcomes the local sick and injured. Ma Bingcheng is a respected country doctor. Thanks to his good medical skills, day after day his waiting room is filled with patients wanting to consult him or get a prescription. His cramped country clinic is an open space where information and personal experiences intertwine, offering the audience a rare dissecting view of the lives and living conditions of the local farmers.
Selected Past Screenings:
Berlin International Film Festival, Germany, 2009 - NETPAC Award
Hong Kong International Film Festival, 2009
Yunnan Multi Culture Visual Festival, Kunming, China, 2009 - Competition Winner
Review of Dr Ma's Country Clinic (opens an external site).
Friday, 8 June 2012 - 6:00pm
Two Films
Dung, by Lance, 2010
50 minutes
Synopsis: With temperatures falling as low as -40º C on the plateau, yak dung is a valuable source of warmth for herdsmen. A non-polluting fuel, it is used to burn offerings to the gods and light oil lamps. Dung can be used to build houses and walls. It is the natural fertilizer of the grasslands, and it can be used as medicine and for washing clothes. Children can even make toys out of it, while artists sometimes sculpt figurines of the Buddha out of the material. The quality of the dung is an indicator of the environmental health of the plateau and the yaks that roam it. In short, for those of us who live on the plateau, dung is something we cannot live without. But the day we will have to live without it is getting nearer and nearer, and that day we will no longer be ourselves. Its loss would signal disaster, and would pit us against nature. When that time comes, our compassion, benevolence and sense of karma will also be doomed. [Filmmaker Lance is a Tibetan herdsman from Qinghai Province. He is a member of the Nyanpo Yuzee Environmental Protection Association. He devotes part of his time to monitoring wetlands.]
Past Screenings:
Yunnan Multi Culture Visual Festival, Kunming, China, 2011
Followed immediately by
Disorder, by Huang Weikai, 2009
61 minutes
Synopsis: The faster Chinese urbanization advances, the stranger peoples' behaviour and moral standards become. This film weaves together over twenty bizarre urban incidents, such as a man who hasn't received indemnity and is threatening suicide; a lunatic dancing ecstatically in the middle of the street; pigs running wildly on a highway; pedestrians risking their lives to cross a busy street; a fight over counterfeit money; the discovery of a cultural relic on a construction site; a polluted river where government officials go to swim; a determined laborer fishing; an escaped alligator hiding; and many, many more.
Director's Note: I have been collecting DV footage of various lengths from a dozen filmmakers for two years now. I decided to create a unique urban symphony, even if I ran the risk of being labelled unconventional. Like Walter Ruttmann's Berlin: Symphony of a Great City, Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera, and Godrey Reggio's Koyaanisqatsi, it is not simply a combination of photogenic and scenic images and composed music, but a tapestry interweaving various sounds and events.
Selected Past Screenings:
Cinema du Reel, Paris, France, 2009 - Young Jury Special Mention Award
Pusan International Film Festival, Korea, 2009
Yunnan Mutli Culture Visual Festival, Kunming, China, 2009 - Jury Special Mention Award
Reviews:
The Atlantic (opens an external site)
"Seeing China" acknowledges the generous funding from the Australian Centre on China in the World and the UTS China Research Centre.
