MCLC: Fan Lixin's "I Am Myself"

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Fan Lixin's "I Am Myself"
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Source: Sinosphere blog, NYT (7/11/14):
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/11/in-china-super-boys-learn-to
-say-i-am-myself/

In China, Super Boys Learn to Say, ‘I Am Myself’
By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW

The young men are in the throes of early adulthood. Most are single
children, the products of state family-planning policies. Some are from
broken homes, or were treated harshly as children, others spoiled.
Battling each other for the No. 1 spot in “Super Boy,” an “American
Idol”-style TV talent show, they discover who they are and learn to love
others in a process recorded in a new documentary by Fan Lixin, who was
named by The New York Times last year as one of “20 Directors to Watch.”

Adding excitement to “I Am Here” (the Chinese title is “Wo Jiu Shi Wo,” or
“I Am Myself”), the 96-minute work has secured a rare, nationwide
theatrical release on July 18.

For Mr. Fan, who has long promoted documentaries for their ability to
depict an unvarnished truth, a rare commodity in the public sphere in
China, the very fact of the film’s general release is an achievement.

“In the two-decade-long history of Chinese documentaries we’ve talked
about AIDS, the countryside, poverty, migrants, lots of things. But I feel
a sense of hurt because it’s so hard to connect with mass audiences on
these issues of contemporary China,” he said in a telephone interview in
Beijing on Friday, following a private showing of the film Thursday night.
He cited two main reasons: “If it’s not restrictions from the government
or the theaters, it’s the people’s own poor understanding of the genre” of
“real-life stories.”

“We hope the theatrical documentary can offer the film market a new
genre,” said Mr. Fan, who was born in China but now has a base in Canada.
“That’s why I chose this topic, the back story to China’s biggest
entertainment show. I wanted to explore the values of the ‘post-90’
generation.”

But the film’s themes are broader than the struggle of Hua Chunyu, 23, the
ultimate winner, with his forbidding father, a common phenomenon in China.
A solidarity develops among the contestants, and they refuse to sell each
other out. Many Chinese view the “post-90″ generation as overly protected
and selfish. Yet many are also lonely, without siblings and struggling
within traditional families to come into their own in an intensely
competitive society.

As Mr. Hua belts out his song, his father, who is in the audience, breaks
into tears — and confides to Mr. Fan’s camera: “I’ve never praised him.”

“For Hua Chenyu, I think this was about winning approval from his father,”
said Mr. Fan, whose “guile and courage with the camera can seem almost
magical,” The New York Times critic A.O. Scott wrote of a previous work,
“Last Train Home.”

“Young people are growing up in a very competitive, high-pressure
society,” he said. “How do they deal with it?”

“Super Boy” was produced by Hunan Satellite Television, as a follow-up to
its popular “Super Girl” talent show of 2005, with competitions staged in
about a dozen Chinese cities. Viewers voted for their favorite
contestants, and in the course of the 2013 contest, several heartthrob
finalists emerged, including Ou Hao and Bai Jugang. But in the end, it was
the shy, spectacles-wearing Mr. Hua who was chosen by the mostly female
fans over some of his chiseled-face opponents and “brothers,” as they come
to call each other as love battles the competitive instinct.

Securing nationwide release for documentaries is difficult in China, where
the censorship authorities have long been wary of their gritty realism and
truth-telling power, and Mr. Fan is keen to emphasize that his documentary
was financed through crowd-sourcing, by tapping into the show’s millions
of fans. For 20 days, a 15-second ad ran on the show, appealing to fans to
help support the making of the film.

“People contributed 20, 30, 40 renminbi,” about $3 to $6 each, he said,
for a total take of five million renminbi, more than $800,000. It was
enough.

“I hope that will give Chinese documentary filmmakers a new model for how
to fund their films,” said Mr. Fan, while conceding that the show’s large,
enthusiastic fan base made the task easier than it might be for films on
other topics.

“It’s always been a problem that lots of broadcast funds go to ‘postcard’
documentaries” that say little new or interesting about China, he said.
“It’s very hard to find funding for real-life documentaries that really
show real-life things.”