MCLC: Bishan Harvest Festival report

Denton, Kirk denton.2 at osu.edu
Tue Dec 4 10:20:33 EST 2012


MCLC LIST
From: kevin lee <kevin at dgeneratefilms.com>
Subject: Bishan Harvest Festival report
***********************************************************

Source: dGenerate Films (12/3/12):
http://dgeneratefilms.com/uncategorized/no-turning-back-a-report-from-the-f
laherty-seminar-at-the-bishan-harvest-festival#more-10447

No Turning Back: A Report from The Flaherty Seminar at the Bishan Harvest
Festival
By Mary Kerr

Mary Kerr is the former Executive Director of the Robert Flaherty Film
Seminar <http://flahertyseminar.org/>, one of the most longstanding
institutions supporting non-fiction filmmaking around the world, primarily
through its annual seminar held in upstate New York. Mary recently
returned from a trip to China, where she organized a Flaherty Seminar in
partnership with the Bishan Harvest Festival, only to witness the
Festival¹s cancellation under unclear circumstances. The following is
Mary¹s report on her experiences.

The Flaherty Film Seminar had been researching the idea of producing a
mini-Flaherty Seminar in China ever since Chinese documentarian Zhao
Dayong <http://dgeneratefilms.com/filmmakers/zhao-dayong> (Street Life,
Ghost Town) presented at the 2010 Robert Flaherty Film Seminar and told
his US distributor Karin Chien, that it was an inspiring and informative
event, unlike any other he had experienced in China. I went to China in
October 2011 with Karin to look into the possibility of doing a Seminar
and struck up a partnership with curator, academic, and documentary
producer Zhang Xianmin, who was determined to help us. After realizing how
difficult it would be to produce our own documentary event in the midst of
a politically sensitive environment in China, we happily accepted an
invitation to screen Seminar works within the confines of the Bishan
Harvest Festival.

The first Bishan Harvest Festival took place last year in Bishan Village
in Anhui Province, an area famous for its rural village architecture,
which has all but disappeared elsewhere in China. The festival highlights
documentary films and other art forms, which focus on traditional rural
culture in China. Ou Ning <http://dgeneratefilms.com/ou-ning>, filmmaker,
artist, and the festival¹s curator, requested that the Flaherty bring
several American films to China which revolve around agriculture. I had
the perfect films in mind ­Sweetgrass, by Lisa Barbash and Lucien
Castaing-Taylor, about sheep ranching in the American west, and Cotton
Road, a work-in-progress by Laura Kissel, which traces the production of
cotton from the fields of the Southern US to the clothing factories of
China. We would also screen Robert Flaherty¹s Louisiana Story and The
Land, which was originally commissioned by the US Department of
Agriculture.

Hurricane Sandy almost got in the way of our mission, but Lisa, Laura, and
I all managed to fly from the East Coast on Oct. 31 with only slight
delays and met up for one night¹s stay in Shanghai before traveling
together to Huangshan for the festival. At the Shanghai airport,  I was
told that my ticket for the single daily flight to Huangshan had been
cancelled, but eventually I ran to the gate with boarding pass in hand,
and found Lisa and Laura anxiously awaiting my arrival. It was not until
we were safely buckled in our seats that I finally was able to reach our
China contact by phone ­ and who informed me that the Bishan Harvest
Festival (and the concurrent Yixian International Photo Festival) were
cancelled! No other information was available except that we would still
be picked up at the Huangshan airport. At this point, I didn¹t know
whether to laugh or cry ­ I chose to laugh, but only on the inside.

Even though it was upsetting news for us, I had to believe that there was
some sort of serendipity in the fact that we didn¹t find out about the
cancellation until there was no turning back. We hesitantly embraced our
adventure into the unknown. As promised, we were met at the airport, taken
to our hotel to drop our bags off, and then driven to Ou Ning¹s house in
Bishan. We were told that because of the 18th Chinese National Congress,
no gatherings of more than 50 people were allowed ­ this is actually a
permanent law in China, although it¹s rarely enforced. There was also news
of a journalist from Anhui Province who died a few nights before of
apparent overdrinking. This had many people wondering what the real story
could have been behind the cancellation.

The Harvest Festival is part of the Bishan Commune project started by Ou
Ning and writer/curator Zuo Jing. It is a group of artists and
intellectuals who devote themselves to the rural reconstruction movement
in China, a movement not necessarily welcomed by the local governments, as
there is very little money to be made in slow growth and preservation
efforts. The central government in China however, is a bit more supportive
knowing that if cities keep expanding, encroaching on land from the
countryside, it will lead to social unrest, as farmers today are more
aware of their rights than they were in the past.

Bishan is one of several small villages in Yixian County; not too long
ago, UNESCO added two of these villages to the World Cultural Heritage
site. Now all villages except for Bishan charge an admission fee to enter
(100 RMB/about $15). That is why Ou Ning chose Bishan as his base ­ he
does not believe in the type of tourism model which ultimately creates a
voyeuristic society. The artists and intellectuals that Ou Ning invited to
the festival, he hoped, might be able to develop better models for
economic development in Bishan, rather than just tourism. ³Cities are
enticing more and more people to move there for a better life and they are
not only depleting the villages of their labor force, but also of their
intellectual pool,² Ou Ning said. Bishan will soon open its first book
shop, and one of its largest businesses to date is the newly renovated
Pig¹s Inn, a beautiful old village home converted into a restaurant and
hotel; the only problem is that it¹s run by outsiders. What Ou Ning wants
to do is engage local people to move back home after they leave for
university and open up businesses like these on their own. Ou Ning himself
is an outsider, not from Bishan, and though he has not set up any
money-making businesses of his own, his not-for-profit is based there, and
helps and encourages locals to start their own enterprises.

In lieu of the festival, we were able to more closely and profoundly
experience many of the exhibitions that had already been installed, and
thankfully, were a little slow to be dismantled. We learned about one
spontaneous project from Teng Hai, a Taiwanese architect who came to
Bishan a month before to install an exhibition; he noticed the need for
lighting throughout the very dark and narrow streets of the village. He
had gone to a local official to say he had fallen and hurt his knee due to
the darkness, and wondered if there was something that could be done
before the arrival of many important international artists. He came back
to the official with a plan to install a string of LED lights encased in
plastic tubing and even did a test run for the villagers to gain their
support and approval. And so it was agreed upon ­ the lights would be
installed and plugged into homes of the villagers, who would be
compensated for their electricity. What I had first thought was just a
beautiful art installation leading the way from one festival venue to
another turned out to be a functional solution to a long-running problem
in Bishan. Teng Hai¹s hope was that the 4-5 km. of lighting would be the
first step to getting better, more permanent lighting throughout the
streets of Bishan, and he hoped they would remain in place at least until
they were naturally destroyed by the elements.
Another spontaneous occurrence was that we were able to screen Lisa
Barbash¹s film Sweetgrassafter all ­ in the courtyard of Ou Ning¹s house.
About 25 interns, villagers, and other ³stranded² artists turned out for
the screening and the questions continued for days for Lisa after the
official Q&A was over; she had many great exchanges about the disappearing
occupation of sheep herding, as well as the art of filmmaking. There are
other accounts of our amazing Bishan experiences outlined in reports
written by Lisa and Laura on the Flaherty website
<http://flahertyseminar.org/flaherty-on-the-road-china-follow-up/>.

Before we left Bishan, I wanted to ask Ou Ning about how much we could
make public about what went on at the ³non-festival,² and I wanted to get
a clearer picture of why the festival was cancelled, or at least what his
thoughts or interpretations were, as nothing is as it seems in China. He
said that there are no secrets, nothing to hide. The cancellation of the
two festivals is just part of the Chinese reality and that¹s why he moved
back to the countryside in the first place ­ to create change. ³If you
want to do something, create an event, especially an ongoing event, you
need to take care to build at least some kind of relationship with the
government, and not to be the enemy,² Ou Ning said. ³If you can handle the
relationship with the local officials, you can get more space to do what
you set out to do. To protest actually makes no sense. If you protest and
fight against them, you totally lose your space.² He continued, ³Today,
China does not need a revolution; the social cost of a revolution would be
too high. If a lot of people do the small things, it would become a big
thing. It would cause an evolution, instead of revolution.²

When asked if he would take on the challenge again for next year for the
Bishan Harvest Festival, he thought hard and said, ³I won¹t stop. I will
continue to stay here and communicate with the local government to change
their ideas step by step. Some of them live in these streets, and actually
some local leaders like us and appreciate our work very much.² He pointed
out that even though the festival was cancelled, he was able to organize
several unofficial gatherings instead.

As for Ou Ning¹s thoughts on why the festival was really cancelled, he
stated it was because the local officials were afraid for the safety of
the hundreds or thousands that would descend upon Bishan and the other
surrounding villages. Concern for media attention on the death of the
journalist was apparently not an issue. They were more worried that more
people would be injured from excessive drinking or from the safety of the
venues, as many of the exhibition sites were in old houses or family
temples; and then of course there are the dark streets where people were
known to fall. Unfortunately, the lighting tubes lining the streets were
soon dismantled along with the exhibitions, and in doing so, gave us a
firsthand look at how truly dark and dangerous the streets were without
them.

It is my perception that the cancelled version of the Bishan Harvest
Festival turned out to be much more akin to a real Flaherty Seminar
experience than had the festival taken place in its intended form. What we
witnessed was the deep and intimate sharing of ideas similar to what
happens at the Seminar during the meals, parties, and walks between
venues, i.e. outside of the formal schedule. I even imagine it might have
been comparable to the first few Flaherty Seminars held over 55 years ago
at the Flaherty farm in Vermont, which gathered not just filmmakers, but
also artists, writers and musicians. Though I wonder how amazing the
festival might have been if it had been allowed to happen, I also can¹t
imagine having a more wonderful experience than we did. I look forward to
returning to Bishan for the next edition of the Harvest Festival and will
no longer fear the thought of cancellation.





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