MCLC: Beijing Independent Film Fest shut down (1)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Kevin B Lee <kevin at dgeneratefilms.com>
Subject: Beijing Independent Film Fest shut down (1)
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Further details from Wall St Journal / Associated Press

Kevin

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Source: WSJ (8/23/14):
http://online.wsj.com/articles/china-closes-down-beijing-independent-film-f
estival-1408806703

China Closes Down Beijing Independent Film Festival
Move Seen as Tightening Controls Against Screening of Films Critical of
Government
By Associated Press

BEIJING—Chinese authorities on Saturday blocked an annual independent film
festival from opening, seizing documents and films from its organizers and
hauling away two event officials.

The move against a rare venue where films critical of the government could
be screened was seen as a sign that Beijing is stepping up its already
tight ideological controls.

Li Xianting, a film critic and founder of the Li Xianting Film Fund, the
organizer of the Beijing Independent Film Festival, said police searched
his office and confiscated materials he had gathered over more than 10
years. Mr. Li and the festival's artistic director, Wang Hongwei, were
later detained by police, according to their supporters.

The festival, which began in 2006, has seen severe police obstruction over
the past few years, but this year's crackdown is far more serious, Mr.
Wang said earlier Saturday.

"In the past few years when they forced us to cancel the festival, we just
moved it to other places, or delayed the screenings," he said. "But this
year, we cannot carry on with the festival. It is completely forbidden."

Over the past week, Mr. Li posted memos saying government security
personnel were pressuring him to cancel the festival, and that he had come
under police surveillance.

The shutdown is a sign that Beijing is tightening ideological controls
under President Xi Jinping, said Chris Berry, professor of film studies at
King's College London in England.

"It's very clear that the Xi Jinping regime is determined to control the
ideological realm, which has not been emphasized so much for a long time,"
he said.

But Mr. Berry said China isn't new to shutting down independent film
festivals, and that the ill treatment of the Beijing festival doesn't mark
the end of the country's independent filmmaking, as filmmakers have found
more venues in an increasingly diverse environment.

The boom in the mainstream movie industry, the rise of galleries that
curate artwork based on moving images, and the Internet all have provided
new opportunities, he said. "Let's not be totally pessimistic," Mr. Berry
said.

Police in the Beijing suburb of Songzhuang, where the event was supposed
to open, said on Saturday they were unaware the festival had been
canceled. But security was tight at the would-be festival site, with about
two dozen men blocking the area and preventing around 30 film directors
and members of the public from entering.

The men, claiming to be villagers, tried to stop anyone from photographing
or videotaping the scene, and in a scuffle, they broke a video camera an
Associated Press journalist was operating and took away another AP
journalist's cellphone. The phone was later returned.

Hu Jie, a movie director who traveled from the eastern city of Nanjing to
attend the festival, was upset at the cancellation. "The audience for my
films is already quite small, perhaps because I make documentaries that
talk about history," Mr. Hu said. "If one of the rare film festivals, like
the Beijing Independent Film festival, is shot down, then it will be very
difficult for us to survive as filmmakers."

Started as a film forum in 2006, the festival over the years has grown to
be one of the most important events for China's independent films, but
also has attracted the attention of authorities eager to regulate free
speech.

In 2012, electricity was cut off shortly after the festival opened, but
organizers still managed to show some new movies. Last year, the festival
went on, although public screenings were banned.

In the memos he posted, Mr. Li said police put him and the fund's office
under surveillance Aug. 18, when this year's festival's poster and
schedule were released online.

He said local authorities initially agreed to a compromise that the
festival be moved to a town farther out in neighboring Hebei province, but
that the management of the hotel where reservations had been made informed
the fund on Friday that police weren't allowing it to host the festival.

Mr. Li said the festival's executive director, Fan Rong, and Mr. Wang were
taken away by Songzhuang police on Friday afternoon and forced to sign a
letter of promise to cancel the festival, before being freed five hours
later. He said employees of the film fund were also said electricity to
the office would be cut off starting on Saturday.

—Copyright 2014 Associated Press