MCLC: Ai Weiwei and indie film

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Kevin B Lee <kevin at dgeneratefilms.com>
Subject: Ai Weiwei and indie film
******************************************************

Source: dGenerate Film:
http://dgeneratefilms.com/dgf-events/cinematalk-interview-with-zhu-rikun-cu
rator-of-jacob-burns-hidden-china-series-on-ai-weiwei-and-chinese-indie-fil
mmaking

and a link to the Jacob Burns Film Center series:
http://www.burnsfilmcenter.org/films/film-series/detail/56644#56991

CinemaTalk: Interview with Zhu Rikun, Curator of Jacob Burns “Hidden
China” Series, on Ai Weiwei and Chinese Indie Filmmaking

This October the Jacob Burns Film Center presents “Hidden China,” a
monthlong series of independent documentaries produced in China,
selected Zhu Rikun, producer, programmer and founder of Fanhall
Studio. Zhu Rikun is a major figure in contemporary Chinese
independent film, having produced such acclaimed films as Karamay and
Winter Vacation. Earlier in 2012 he co-curated “Hidden Histories,” a
series of Chinese independent documentaries for the International Film
Festival Rotterdam. The centerpiece of the series was a retrospective
of the documentaries of Ai Weiwei. Many of those selections are
included in the “Hidden China” series at the Jacob Burns Film Center.

dGenerate Films’ Kevin B. Lee recorded this interview with Zhu Rikun
during the Rotterdam series, focusing on the significance of Ai Weiwei
as a documentary filmmaker and how they reflect developments in
documentary filmmaking, citizen journalism and freedom of information
and expression in today’s China.

Interview transcribed by Stephanie Hsu.

Kevin Lee: Looking at Ai Weiwei and his films, it seems he’s made
films in two different Chinas. We look at a movie like Fairytale or
Ordos 100—these are documentaries about how the Chinese art world is
one of unlimited money and prestige. It’s a world the ruling powers
approve of, because they think it will help elevate China in the eyes
of the world. And so they work with Ai Weiwei as a famous artist to
help promote that view. At the same time, he makes these highly
socially critical films, like Disturbing the Peace and One Recluse.
How do you see the connection between these two different kinds of
movies that he makes? Do you think they are all basically the same
kind of film or are they very different?


Zhu Rikun: I think we can see a change in Ai Weiwei. In fact in the
early years when Ai Weiwei came back from the United States, he was
regarded as one of the really important artists and curators of
contemporary art, and he was also a really well known architect. At
the time he was not so politically sensitive and he didn’t do
something like what he did later. He was also welcomed by the Chinese
government. They asked him to be the advisor for the Olympic Games,
for the architecture of the Beijing Olympic Stadium.

But when Ai Weiwei started to do something like investigate the deaths
of students in the Sichuan Earthquake, or when he was involved in
other social events, the government changed their opinion towards him,
he was not welcomed by them anymore, and he became a really dangerous
person for them. Like the Shanghai government, when they destroyed Ai
Weiwei’s studio [in January 2011].

I think his later films also reflect this change. I don’t think a film
like Ordos 100 is really different from his later films, but I think
we can see the change. I really like his dissident films like One
Recluse, about Yang Jia and also about his Sichuan experience, like
Disturbing the Peace [and So Sorry], so I think it’s an important
development.

Kevin Lee: One question I wonder about is: who else can make these
films besides him? I wonder if it’s because he’s so famous and has
such a high profile that he feels he can get away with taking on more
challenging topics, whereas a less famous director wouldn’t have the
resources to do it, doesn’t have as many people working for them, or
isn’t as protected by their public profile and support network. He’s
so different from the other independent directors because of his
status. At the same time I’ve heard him criticize other independent
artists and directors in China, that they don’t try hard enough or
that they’re too afraid to take on topics like those in his films. Do
you feel this is a fair thing for him to say?

Zhu Rikun: I don’t know whether he criticizes other independent
filmmakers, but I think Ai Weiwei has his own way to make his own
documentary film, and his documentary is really different, really an
“Ai Weiwei style.” But I don’t think that the other filmmakers cannot
do something like that. In fact each filmmaker can find their own way
to do their films, maybe also about the same subject. Maybe others are
not as famous as Ai Weiwei, don’t have so much resources or enough
money to do something like Ai Weiwei, but I think each one can have
their own way. In fact there are a lot of things for the Chinese
filmmakers to do, not only Ai Weiwei. I think Ai Weiwei is now the
most famous one among them, but I still think the others can do
something.

Kevin Lee: It just seems like he has so many people working for him.
Even for One Recluse, about Yang Jia, he didn’t even make the movie
himself, but he had a team of filmmakers doing all the research, all
the investigations, and they had a really good lawyer to help advise
on the project, so a lot of it is due to having really strong
connections.

Zhu Rikun: But I don’t think Ai Weiwei has a big crew. Maybe his crew
is really small, as I know sometimes he just has one cameraman,
Zhaozhao. I think he’s quite good for shooting such films, but he can
try his best to shoot everything he can; that’s really important.
Sometimes there will be two or three cameras, but it doesn’t mean a
really big crew. And they are not professionals, they just open their
camera, then shoot whatever.

Kevin Lee: There’s a really interesting moment in So Sorry, when he is
travelling in Germany and has to go to a hospital for life-saving
brain surgery stemming from his being beaten by police in Sichuan. The
cameraman wants to follow Ai Weiwei into the hospital room, and the
nurse says, “No no, you can’t do this, he’s sick, we have to take care
of him now,” but the cameraman keeps persisting. So even when maybe
it’s not good for Ai Weiwei or his health, the camera doesn’t stop, it
just keeps going.

Zhu Rikun: When I met Ai Weiwei once, he said that what’s most
important is that you don’t stop your filming, you just open your
camera and you just shoot as much as you can. Don’t stop, even when
the secret police come and ask you to stop. That’s the only thing for
documentary filmmaking.

Kevin Lee: His presence on camera is also really interesting, because
if you look at the other documentary directors, very few of them put
themselves on camera. For one thing, I think a lot of these directors
work alone and don’t have someone else to film them. Or maybe they
just want to capture a social reality, and they don’t want to include
their presence in that reality. For instance, in Ji Dan’s When the
Bough Breaks, Ji Dan never shows herself on camera and downplays her
relationship with her subjects, even when it’s apparent how much of a
role she plays in their lives. Whereas with Ai Weiwei, it’s always
about his experience with a social institution or issue, as a way of
illustration. What do you think about how his role as a protagonist
makes his films different from other Chinese documentaries?

Zhu Rikun: I think with Ai Weiwei, for the most part, his subject is
not just about other people, but he’s one of them. He’s not the one
behind the camera, he’s the people that he films. I think from his
really early documentary films, like Fairytale, mostly a camera will
follow him, and he doesn’t avoid himself. He’s not like a director,
he’s something like an actor. Of course, I don’t think he’s acting,
but I still think he’s like an actor in his films. So of course this
is really different from most other Chinese documentary films, and
that also makes a really strong Ai Weiwei style.

Also you can find in some other documentary films, something may be
similar, but maybe not strong like Ai Weiwei’s films, because Ai
Weiwei’s films are really related to Chinese society. But something
like the others like Hu Xinyu’s film [The Man], or Wu Haohao’s films,
they’re also in their films, but their films are very private.

Kevin Lee: I think Li Ning’s film Tape is both—it’s very private, but
you also see him interacting with other people and society at large.
With Ai Weiwei, do you feel that because there’s a camera filming
everything, he acts differently than he would otherwise? Does he act
more aggressively to try to produce a dramatic outcome? In Disturbing
the Peace and So Sorry, I think he’s deliberately trying to
demonstrate a situation of how to push against the police and the
authorities to get one’s way. It’s almost like an instructional video,
showing other people, especially Chinese citizens, how to fight for
their rights and how to resist the police.

Zhu Rikun: I think you have to compare two things. The camera is very
important for Ai Weiwei, but what’s even more important for him is the
internet. In fact, I think the camera for him is just part of his
whole social interaction. When Ai Weiwei does anything, he just puts
the news on the internet, like his Twitter, sometimes on some Chinese
site like Weibo, but mostly on Twitter. He’s connected with his fans,
and he has a lot of supporters. His films are just one part of his
art. He’s an artist. In fact maybe sometimes he’s not a filmmaker. So
I think that is a different thing.

Kevin Lee: So you can’t just look at the documentaries by themselves,
you have to see how they are connected to the internet and everything
that he does—it’s just one big creative social environment. How does
the internet in China work for people trying to share movies and share
political subjects? How does it work with censorship and how are you
able to communicate things to each other?

Zhu Rikun: Well, of course in China, the global internet is not the
same as the internet in China, because of the Great Firewall that bans
a lot of really popular websites, like Twitter or Facebook or
Youtube—they’re not allowed in China. So in China we just call it a
really local internet. So this means people cannot access information
fully, but they use different ways to get through the firewall. And in
China we often say “fan qiang”—how to get over the firewall to an
international website. Also, it leads to something of our own, like,
we can’t use Twitter in China, but we have our Weibo microblog. And
there are a lot of people on such sites, because China has so many
people on the internet.

But of course you cannot use some words that are sensitive. Like you
cannot type “Ai Weiwei” in Chinese. But it’s interesting because
sometimes you can type the same word in English. So you can type “Ai
Weiwei” in English, and it’s okay. Sometimes when I type “Ai Weiwei”
in Chinese, they delete my articles immediately, but when I type “Ai
Weiwei” in English, it’s okay.

The other really interesting thing is the Chinese Internet police. In
China, there is really big group of Internet police, they censor any
word or information on the Internet, and if they find something that’s
dangerous, they delete them or ban them. Not only Ai Weiwei’s name is
so sensitive, but those of some well-known intellectuals or
dissidents— they cannot use their name on the Internet. When they use
their names to log into the Internet, they will not be allowed to
speak, so people use different names or some fake name to speak. And
when one name in deleted, they use another name and another. Ai Weiwei
has used more than a hundred names, because when he uses a name, it
will be deleted immediately. So in China they say something like
“zhuan shi”— rebirth. So sometimes some people are reborn for more
than one hundred times online. Maybe it’s difficult to understand, but
that’s the thing that happens. The Chinese Internet is a really
different thing from the rest of the world.

Kevin Lee: Do you feel social media and the web has made a significant
difference in Chinese culture and society, not just for educated,
web-savvy people who have access to this information, but society in
general, especially people who don’t have access to resources to stand
up for their rights? The underprivileged classes in China, much of
them still don’t even have access to the Internet—how does this help
them?

Zhu Rikun: Yes, I think of course that’s a really big problem for the
Chinese people, because just compared to all the people in China,
those who can access Internet, especially the global Internet, it’s
just a part of them. But I still think it’s possible for more and more
people to understand what’s happening through the Internet, and more
and more of them will try to use the Internet and acquire information.
Before, in my hometown, people didn’t care what’s happening outside,
but now when I’m back in my hometown, some of my friends tell me
something like what’s happening in Beijing or another country like in
the Middle East. I can see the change is happening. Often my friends
and my relatives and often my brother, they care about what is
happening. They know more now.