MCLC: Chinese Realities/Documentary Visions

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Kevin B Lee <alsolikelife at gmail.com>
Subject: Chinese Realities/Documentary Visions
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Press release with full listing of films:
http://press.moma.org/wp-content/files_mf/chineserealitiespressrelease.pdf

CHINESE REALITIES/DOCUMENTARY VISIONS TRACES THE EVOLUTION OF DOCUMENTARY
PRACTICE IN CHINA OVER THE PAST 25 YEARS
 

Pema Tseden’s Old Dog To Make Its New York Theatrical Premiere in a
Weeklong Run
 

Chinese Realities/Documentary Visions
May 8–June 1, 2013
The Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters

 
NEW YORK, April 10, 2013—The Museum of Modern Art announces Chinese
Realities/Documentary Visions, an exhibition that features nearly 30 films
made between 1988 and 2013 that highlight the evolution of documentary
practice in China over the past 25 years, revealing the growth and
ever-increasing influence of nonfiction film and media as a mode of
communication and expression in contemporary Chinese film and art, May 8
through June 1, 2013, in The Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters. Amid China’s
epochal transformations over the last two decades, new documentary
aesthetics have emerged, as the cultural and societal challenges caused by
China’s transition to a free-market economy compelled professional and
aspiring filmmakers alike to capture new realities on screen. The
selections, encompassing a wide range of Chinese film and media, including
independently made films, state-approved productions, amateur videos, and
Web-based Conceptual art, provide a vivid look into a society in perpetual
transformation. Chris Berry, co-editor of the foundational text, The New
Chinese Documentary Movement: For the Public Record will be present to
discuss the movement’s impact and the aesthetic and moral questions it has
raised for Chinese cinema. The exhibition is organized by Sally Berger,
Assistant Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art, and Kevin
B. Lee, independent curator and Vice President, Programming and Education,
dGenerate Films.

Working largely outside the state media apparatus, pioneer filmmakers like
Wu Wenguang, Zhang Yuan, and Duan Jinchuan provided bracing alternative
visions of both society and filmmaking, with an ethos based on direct
observation of reality and uncensored personal expression. A featured
guest of the series is Wu Wenguang, a major figure of the New Documentary
Movement from its inception to the present.  The series includes several
films directed and produced by Wu, including his 1990 film Bumming in
Beijing: The Last Dreamers (Liu lang Beijing), which captures a portrait
of five artists eking out a life in the nation's capital and represents
the birth of the Chinese independent documentary movement.The film's open,
observational structure and handheld camera work are hallmarks of the
movement today, as is its self-reflexive awareness of the documentarian's
role, with a sense of intimacy and solidarity between filmmaker and
subject. Similarly, his groundbreaking collaborative film series China
Villagers Documentary Project (Zhongguo cunmin yinxiang jihua)(2005)
pursues the idea that anyone can become a documentary filmmaker by
featuring 10 villagers from across China who were trained by Wu Wenguang
and filmmaker Jian Yi to make films documenting electoral processes in
their home villages. The project sparked a new model of Chinese
participatory documentary, with community members depicting their own
lives. Wu Wenguang will be present at the screenings to introduce and
discuss his films.

The opening night film, Zou Xueping’s The Satiated Village (Jiu zu fan bao
de cun) (2011), is a product of Wu Wenguang’s Folk Memory Documentary
Project, which encourages amateur filmmakers to investigate the hidden
histories of their home villages.  The film is a follow-up to Zou
Xueping’s first feature, The Starving Village, for which Zou interviewed
residents of her hometown about their experiences during a famine that
killed tens of millions. The Satiated Village follows Zou as she tries to
screen the earlier film in her village, only to meet resistance from
family and neighbors fearful of official reprisal.

            The fascination with realism has informed the work of
filmmakers as disparate as Zhang Yimou and Jia Zhangke and artists like Ai
Weiwei and Ou Ning from the early 1990s to the present. The proliferation
of the “reality aesthetic” has led to more complex notions of what reality
means and how it is represented. In Jia Zhangke’s 24 City (Er shi si cheng
si)(2008), Jia explores the history of a state-owned factory being
demolished to make way for a luxury apartment complex through nine
documentary-style interviews. Other films in the series that push the
boundaries of reality to vivid extremes are Ju Anqi’s confrontational
street documentary There’s a Strong Wind in Beijing (Beijing de feng hen
da) (1999), Li Ning’s experimental autobiography Tape (Jiao dai) (2010),
Huang Weikai’s dystopian city symphony Disorder (Xianshi shi guoqu de
weilai) (2009), and Cao Fei’s i.Mirror by China Tracy (2007), a work
produced entirely within the virtual reality social platform Second Life.
Cao Fei is also one of several exceptional women directors featured in the
program, a list that also includes Zou Xueping, Ning Ying, Li Hong, Liu
Jiayin and Yang Lina.

The exhibition also features several new works, with a spotlight on Pema
Tseden, the most important figure in a new wave of Tibetan language cinema
emerging in China. His 2011 film Old Dog (Lao gou/Khyi rgan) will make its
New York theatrical premiere in a weeklong run during the festival. The
film follows a young Tibetan as he decides to sell his family’s nomad
mastiff, an exotic dog that fetches a fortune from wealthy Chinese. His
aging father opposes him, leading to a series of tragicomic events that
threaten to tear the family apart. His third feature, Old Dog employs an
observational documentary approach that soberly depicts the erosion of
Tibetan culture under the pressures of contemporary society. Pema Tseden
will be present at select screenings to introduce and discuss his films.

Other new features in the program include the North American Premiere of
Longing for the Rain (Chunmeng) (2013), the fiction film debut by Yang
Lina, one of China’s leading woman documentarians; the New York premiere
of the award-winning When Night Falls (Wo hai you hua yao shuo) (2012) by
Ying Liang; and Yumen, a ground-breaking experimental collaboration
between Chinese directors Xu Ruotao and Huang Xiang and American filmmaker
J.P. Sniadecki. Yumen will make its North American Premiere as part of the
Modern Mondays series, MoMA’s ongoing showcase of innovative moving image
works, with the filmmakers engaging in dialogue with the audience.
 
 

No. 12 Press Contact:

Meg Montgoris, (212) 708-9757, meg_montrgoris at moma.org
For downloadable high-resolution images, register at MoMA.org/press.
 

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Public Information:
 
Please note: As of May 2013, The Museum of Modern Art will be open seven
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