THIS IS A PIECE A GOOD FRIEND OF MINE WROTE FOR OUR MAY 2007 EDITION.
Directors Dance with the State
By Ari Sznajder
The setting is right for a Kung Fu epic, but today Zhang Yuedong and his clan have taken over the dusty hutong alleyways of Xiaopucun to make a low budget independent film. In this ancient fort town on the outskirts of Beijing, townspeople look on as cameras roll and production assistants shush street vendors. The cast and crew sit on the sidelines smoking cigarettes and slurping watermelons. Zhang’s film, a sprawling three-part narrative shot in Yunnan, Nanjing and Beijing about a shepherd who navigates a multi-level dream, would have had difficulty finding a home in China’s old-line state-backed studios.
Zhang is part of a generation of new independent directors who do not need state approval to make films as long as they do not officially plan to screen them publicly in China. Empowered by filmmaking’s digital revolution and less overt government censorship, these directors are finding it easier to make a living from their craft. This was virtually impossible a decade ago when restrictions were tighter, equipment was more expensive and contacting film festivals abroad was more difficult.
But these independent directors, given some freedom to express themselves, are not necessarily testing their new boundaries. Instead, many are portraying the dynamic society and diversity of lifestyles in modern China. “It’s too easy to make a film that criticizes the government,” Zhang says. “I want my friends to enjoy my films. Changing society is an illusion.”
Although it is technically illegal to screen unsanctioned films in China, if a movie bar gets shut down it will often reopen in a different location. Some bars cater to foreigners and wealthy Chinese while others, shown in the dusty spare rooms of warehouses, cater to university students and don’t charge admission.
“You won’t run into problems filming,” Li Hongqi says, “but you can’t have large screenings in China.” Li’s 15,000 RMB budget film, “So Much Rice,” won international acclaim in 2005 at the Locarno, Pusan, Vancouver and Sao Paolo film festivals. Like many independent filmmakers in China, Li has no state-sanctioned work unit, wife or kids, and he writes commercial novels to survive while making films with funding from Chinese businesspeople and from film festival awards.
While Li considers “So Much Rice” art for art’s sake, other films tread closer to the edge in their social commentary. “They Are All Our Dogs,” shot in Henan Province portrays dogfights in the countryside. The shouting villager’s faces are framed in intense close-ups juxtaposed with the dog’s increasingly bloodied faces. At the end of these sessions, the villagers look around with fear and suspicion.
Other films display the competitiveness and lack of morality found in some aspects of modern Chinese society. “Senior Year,” a documentary by Zhou Hao, depicts the enormous pressure students face while taking entrance exams. For months, the students live like soldiers, shave their heads and are barred from contact with the opposite sex. In a remote town in Fujian Province, some students score well, but they recite doctrines memorized for exams as if it has no meaning. Forced to live lives not of their choosing, some opt for suicide.
At another screening, death takes on a different form in a documentary commenting on the demise of Chinese filial piety at Beijing’s Space For Imagination movie bar. According to audience members, the theatre’s name is appropriate. “I come here because I see movies I won’t see in other places,” a master’s student in macroeconomics at Beijing University says. “Many of them are sad but show the changing Chinese culture that is not often seen in China.”
Larger film screenings that take place in Beijing are often sponsored by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and limit sensitive material. A case in point is last year’s June 22nd Borderline festival, an event sponsored by UNESCO and UNAIDS and involving Chinese companies and foreign organizations, that disallowed the screening of films critical of current governmental HIV-AIDS prevention policies. Chinese filmmakers squatted in the shadows, arguing that this was just a show for foreigners with overpriced wine.
These directors are also less than enthused about mainstream Chinese films that have been lauded elsewhere. “Underground films are solid earth. Above ground is dust.” Fu Rui, a filmmaker who formerly worked for state-run CCTV says.
Independent filmmakers in China are constantly looking for ways to differentiate themselves from their foreign counterparts. “In the U.S., the personal opinions of the filmmakers may matter,” says Cui Zi’en, filmmaker, Beijing Film Academy professor and China’s progenitor of independent film. “But that is not the case in China.” What distinguishes Chinese independent films from other countries is that they reflect less about how directors feel and more about how society continuously changes.
However, independent Chinese films still tend to explore social topics with at least subtle political overtones, from homosexuality to the plight of migrant workers to nationalism – though often stoking nationalistic feelings instead of criticizing them. Filmmakers have also shown little fear in taking on the Cultural Revolution. But films that publicize cults or promote obscenity are expressly prohibited.
In the winter of 2003, a group of filmmakers asked the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT) to abolish censorship. The dialogue resulted in the mandate for filmmakers to send only a 1,000-word summary of the film content before filming, but the script and final cut must still be submitted before the film can be screened publicly. “The regulations have not loosened in principle,” Cui said, “but we can reduce the sensitivity of censorship.”
Independent filmmakers use indirect methods to portray their message and try to maintain dialogue with SARFT officials, because they do not want the state to clamp down on filmmaking. “There is a dance between filmmakers and the state,” Paul Pickowicz, Professor of Chinese Studies at UCSD says. “Filmmakers know the taboo subjects, and the cultural bureaucracy lets them blow off some steam.”
Since the underground sensation “Beijing Bastards” debuted in 1993, independent Chinese filmmakers have been pumping out approximately 50 feature-length films per year. Many of these films land in the hands of Jim Cheng, head of the International Relations library and East Asia collection at the University of California San Diego Library (UCSD) — the largest independent Chinese film archive in the world. Cheng’s long-established ties with independent Chinese directors and distributors allow him to procure rare titles in his quest to document and preserve China’s modern history and emerging artistic expression.
“If the government were to crack down on filmmaking, it would be much more difficult for me (to communicate with the directors and procure films),” Jim Cheng says. Cheng has collected more than 403 films and says that the government does not see independent filmmaking as an immediate threat as long as highly sensitive topics are avoided.
“The future of independent films,” however, Cui says, “depends entirely on the government’s attitude.”
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