Record the entangled experience for changing the genealogy. Record the experience for engraving movable type, hand-printed.
Social & External
The people behind it
Xilin Gol grassland in Inner-Mongolia is one of few natural grasslands with high-quality pasture in China. When a rich coalfield is discovered under the ground of this beautifully natural scene, the nomadic herdsmen reluctantly migrate into the cities and wave farewell to their grassland. The water levels lower, plants die, and only sandstorms remain on the prairie.
A microcosm of China past and present flows through Xu Tong’s intimate docu “Shattered,” in which the maverick indie filmmaker continues to refine his techniques and concerns shown in his previous “Wheat Harvest” and “Fortune Teller.”
Yuguo, from Mongolia, lost his father when he was very young. His mother Liuxia was not able to raise him as a heavy drinker. With social support, she sent Yuguo to Wuxi for free education. Liuxia is depressed all day long, and she finds sustenance of missing Yuguo in reindeer and wine. One winter holiday after many years, Yuguo returns to his hometown, the Evenki settlement deep in the Greater Khingan mountains. At that time, he is no longer the boy who just left home, but a thirteen-year-old teenager. Facing alcoholic mother, poetic uncle, pure people from the tribe, familiar yet strange forest, Yuguo, who grew up in the city, doesn’t know what to do. In the snow-laden mountains of Aoluguya, northeast of Inner Mongolia, the film chronicles their brief time together. Yuguo and His Mother is the second documentary of Gu Tao’s Evenki trilogy.
The story happened near the Shuangjing subway station in Beijing. The female stall owner was aggrieved by the selective enforcement of urban management and expressed that she would fight to the end for fairness. When the urban management team forced her to close, she burst into tears and complained of social injustice. Even in the urban management team, she had to ask for fairness. But in the face of institutional chaos, she finally chose to compromise and continue the cat and mouse game. The old man is a Christian, is he helpless in obedience to fate? How many people's melody played by the Huqin sounded in the smog of Beijing?
The documentary Building Archeology (jiànzhú kǎo) (2011) considers the more recent past. It’s made up of three vignettes about different buildings in Beijing: a museum, an abandoned hospital, and a detention center. The latter two vignettes are especially interesting. In the second, a woman wanders around the ruins of a hospital built in a week to deal with the 2003 SARS outbreak. The third concerns a former prisoner, tracing out a map of the detention center where he was held in 2011.
The year 2003 is a rather turbulent period for Hong Kong – the economy was in recession, the government constantly implemented futile policies, the SARS outbreak, and, on July 1st, 500,000 people went on strike opposing the adoption of Article 23 of the Basic Law. It was against this political atmosphere that YIN Zhao-Jian gave up his social worker job, a 10 year long and steady career, and joined the political circle and participated in the district councilor election, which he had no idea about.
Early in the morning, the priest read in the church at the disabled orphanage. At dawn, the villagers entered the funeral ceremony during the prayer ceremony. In disabled orphanages, there are babies in the youngest children. Two children attending school together did not attend the class normally. More children with reduced mobility can only be dazed and crawl on the ground. But they are also God's people and attend worship services in the church. The autumn mist was hazy, and a new cathedral was being built in the village. Insects, kittens, puppies, orphans, villagers who worship, all life is safe. At night, the tired priest went to sleep after finishing writing. In his dream, he reached a graveyard and remained silent with his dying mother. Seasons are changing, rainy days, winter snow, orphans wear thick winter clothes, making movement more difficult. The cathedral was built, and people celebrated the biggest Christmas day of the year.
Yu Tian (played by Hu Tian) is a senior this year. He hasn't returned home for a few years while studying in a big city. The estrangement between him and his mother (Lin Jiehua) is somehow getting bigger and bigger. He is immersed in his artistic dreams and is not practical, but his mother, who has always been conservative, does not understand. His friends remained the same, still the same young people in the small town. Friends booed that he would be the most promising one among them, but he himself was convinced. He told his sister (played by Sun Nan) that he would go to the big city to make a fortune.
Several boys who are about to graduate live in the 2006 dormitory. All-day long eating, chatting, playing cards, and playing with mobile phones, to kill their youth, just to get a high school diploma. Finally, I graduated from high school, but where is the future? Go to work or continue to join a college? Facing such students, it is difficult for teachers to show enthusiasm for teaching. Only Teacher Hou carefully wiped the bulletin board , as always. The original site of Duancun Middle School in Pingyao County was an ancient temple in the Ming Dynasty. In the summer of 2011, more than 150 students from the school merged with two other high schools and moved into the new school in the city. Grass grows on the playground, and the gatekeeper Laomi and his family continue to live in the teaching building.
The film is composed of clips of footage shot in 2010-2015. The first clip: filmed in 2015, the daily study and life of Datong Youzai Primary School. The second clip: filmed in 2013, the state of the city of Taixing Daxing civil engineering transformation. The third clip: filmed for 2010-2013, on the eve of graduation and the last youth moments passing by. Fourth clip: filmed for 2010, the time we spent in a rental house during the summer vacation.
In order to face his 30th birthday, the author of the film began to implement a long-planned plan for the Dragon Boat Festival, bringing a dog, a computer, some vegetables and eggs to the dilapidated yard on the north side of the mountain in Pingyao County, where he will live alone for more than a dozen. Day and night, organize and pack the first half of my life, recall and think, talk with the self in the device, and smoke, silence, think or sing with the middle-aged neurotic who comes to ask for cigarettes every day.
The film records a middle-aged woman Han Mei who longs for life. In the fight against the disease, the experience makes her redefine the meaning of life...
The film records a long journey by Guo Kuan and his friends, as well as a post-cycling biography. The changes in Dali after one year, and the hurried passing by around. These subtly melt into life, and then there is this instinct documentary that needs to be expressed.
As a person who has taken art exams, Guo Jiang chose to enter the industry of "art exam training" after graduating from university. His role is that of both an educator and a businessman, although most of the time he prefers to appear as "Mr. Guo". The stage on which Mr. Guo's skills are put to use is a small county in central Henan, which is also his hometown. This documentary is about Guo Jiang's career and life.In short, hovering between the desire and the so-called ideal, adhere to or let go, he needs to make a choice.
Hakka, a special and little-known ethnic group in Hainan, is a branch of the Chinese Hakka system that has been neglected. They are far from the mainland, and they are rarely mentioned. The relatively closed environment has allowed the Central Plains culture to be completely preserved. After that, it has formed a special change with the ethnic minorities such as Li Miao. However, this unique traditional culture is now fading away in the erosion of modern civilization.
The story took place in 2008. Henan Guo Hui, who was a harvester, went to the provinces to harvest wheat for him. He and his father then invited a driver and set off. I went to Shanxi, Shaanxi, and also included Henan. They met other mairs to talk about the earthquake in Sichuan and talk about the difficulties of collecting wheat. Bargaining with the farmers, thinking of the law less to give the leader a little commission, sometimes to think of the way to get money, sometimes to think of ways to escape the control of the leader. The driver complained that the car owner was too bad, and the owner complained that the driver had eaten too much. In the middle of the road, I also encountered the need to collect the toll, and finally met the young and confused.
In the summer of 2007, Gan Xiaoer led an independent film projection team, using projectors and self-made screens, to tour villages in Henan province to show his feature film "Raised from dust" for 8 times, and recorded the process. The 81-minute version of Church Cinema records only one stop, the Qiliying Church, where "Raised from dust" was shot.
Aoluguya, Aoluguya is the first film in Gu Tao’s Ewenki Trilogy. A tale that unfolds in the Aoluguya forest, featuring such unique characters as a mother who dulls her sadness over the absence of her son, Yuguo, with alcohol; her brother; and Maria, the tribal chieftain who watches over them.
A small rural township called Red White was seriously devastated by the May 12th Earthquake in China 2008. A 62-year-old Taoist survived even though his temple was largely torn by the disaster. This documentary tells the story of how the Taoist practices the widely believed Chinese traditional religion and the local people’s daily life during the township’s post-quake reconstruction.
Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.
A string of threatening emails escalates into a revenge plot involving a newly married US marshal and his ex-girlfriend.
In an intimate and joyful story of love in the face of loss, celebrated poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley find strength—and unexpected hilarity—in what might be their final year together.
Ranjit, a farmer in India, takes on the fight of his life when he demands justice for his 13-year-old daughter, the victim of a brutal gang rape. His decision to support his daughter is virtually unheard of, and his journey unprecedented.
A documentary about how a dominant cultural and demographic institution both sustains their traditional activities and adapts to the digital revolution.
The life and career of an actor, artist, and icon. His own journey through his own camera.
A documentary on the life of John Lennon, with a focus on the time in his life when he transformed from a musician into an antiwar activist.
A compilation of over 30 years of private home movie footage shot by Lithuanian-American avant-garde director Jonas Mekas, assembled by Mekas "purely by chance", without concern for chronological order.
From the heights of her modeling fame to her tragic death, this documentary reveals Anna Nicole Smith through the eyes of the people closest to her.
An inside look at one of the most anticipated movie sequels ever with James Cameron and cast.
A documentary about the making of David Fincher's 2008 film THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON. Virtually every element in the evolution of the Fincher's film is documented here, from the project's attachment to numerous other directors during the 1990s, to its shoot in 2006 and 2007 in New Orleans, to its complex, CGI-intensive postproduction process.
Director Michael Apted revisits the same group of British-born adults after a 7 year wait. The subjects are interviewed as to the changes that have occurred in their lives during the last seven years.
A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
A documentary on legendary movie-poster artist Drew Struzan.
Follow the evolution of the 'Halloween' movies over the past twenty-five years. It examines why the films are so popular and revisits many of the original locations used in the films - seeing the effects on the local community. For the first time, cast, crew, critics and fans join together in the ultimate 'Halloween' retrospective.
Serial killer Dennis Nilsen narrates his life and horrific crimes via a series of chilling audiotapes recorded from his jail cell.
The definitive 3½-hour documentary about the troubled creation and enduring legacy of the science fiction classic 'Blade Runner', culled from 80 interviews and hours of never-before-seen outtakes and lost footage.
This documentary focuses on the actors and their journey over two summers to create the remake to the original IT, by Stephen King. The documentary originally released as bonus material, bundled with IT: Chapter Two.
Serving life in prison for murdering their parents, Lyle and Erik Menendez speak out in this documentary explaining the shocking crime and ensuing trials.
Film adaptation of French economist Thomas Piketty's ground-breaking global bestseller of the same name: an eye-opening journey through wealth and power.