The Iron Ministry
★ 6.6 · 2014 · 82m · Documentary
Filmed over three years on China’s railways, The Iron Ministry traces the vast interiors of a country on the move: flesh and metal, clangs and squeals, light and dark, and language and gesture. Scores of rail journeys come together into one, capturing the thrills and anxieties of social and technological transformation. The Iron Ministry immerses audiences in fleeting relationships and uneasy encounters between humans and machines on what will soon be the world’s largest railway network.
More Like This
Guranay
2021
This film is a realistic record of a sixty-year-old couple living in a remote village (Gurenay) in the Badain Jaran Desert of Alashan, Inner Mongolia plant thousands of mu of ammodendron and euphratica to fight against expanding deserts.
More info →
Little Feet
2006
Xiayao Village, Youyu County, Shanxi ProvinceThe 7-year-old and big-footed Bai Nu and Liu Buhan, both of whom died because of their loved ones, were brought together with their three children more than 40 years ago. (Bai Danu 2 Men 1 Women) (Liu Buhan 3 (Daughter) Nowadays, the children have become grandparents, and most of them are not next to Bai Bainu and Liu Buhan. The children of both sides have differences over the old age of raising the two elderly people ... so despite the two They are all in their eighties, and still need to get up and return to the field to farm in the morning and night, and the old lady Bai is more because of her little feet, she has to stagger in the wind and rain, kneeling in the fields ... A foot-binding old lady faces the camera and talks to her little feet ...
More info →
Church Cinema
2009
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.
More info →
Cutting My Teeth
2020
This film mainly records the story of two adolescent children receiving primary education of Peking Opera in Shanghai Opera School in a documentary form. As they are in their adolescence, they gradually form their own plans and ideals for the future. On this unusual learning path, they face the problem of choice between reality and ideals, and gradually learn to accept and grow up.
More info →
Bridges Burned
2016
In the autumn of 2010, the poet Xiaozhao set off from Beijing and took a national tour of his personal poem collection "My Hope is on the Road" printed at a print shop. All the way up and down, full of ambition. Photographer Zhuang Ruijie went to Guangdong halfway to shoot. He recorded a trip to Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Shaanxi Shanyang, Huashan, Zhongnanshan, Xi'an and returned to Beijing for about 15 days.
More info →
My Life Against Taiwan Sotokufu - 1891-1931
2012
“My Life Against Taiwan Sotofuku – 1891~1931” is Taiwan’s first biographical animated documentary. The film combines animation, archival photos, footage, and sound theater to recreate the heroic epic of CHIANG Wei-shui, the “the Savior of Taiwanese People,” during Japan’s colonial rule of Taiwan. Through first-person flashback narrations, Taiwan’s pioneer revolutionary CHIANG Wei-shui tells the turbulent tale of the rise and fall of Taiwan’s non-violent anti-Japanese movements, as well as a lifetime of remarkable resistance against Taiwan Sotofuku (Japan’s colonial government). Cast
More info →
Trash Village
2013
This is the fourth film in my Zoujiacun series within the Folk Memory Project. In 2013, I came back to my village and faced the trash all over the village. The children and I tried to improve the environment of our village. This was a tough fight against the trash and ideas of villagers. I felt like that the trash was in my heart. The 95-year-old grandma Sha and her 49-year-old son Xizhu, their lonely solitary life is also in this film. This film is about the progress that I fight with myself.
More info →
Foolish Village
2014
This is my fifth time coming back to my own village, where I was born and brought up. After I graduated from college, when I was staying in my village, I was always suspected and judged by the village people. Xizhu grandpa was called ‘fool’ by other villagers, and Zengxiang aunty was looked down by others. They come into my life, and I stayed with them. Their naïve and strange thought made think about my village in a new way. In this quite ‘normal’ village, who are normal people? In those normal people’s eyes, am I another fool of this village?
More info →
Way of Fortune
2007
"Mazu" or "The Sea God" has been the most important religious belief of ordinary people in my hometown for four hundred years. Along the coast of China and even in the Nanyang region, there is at least one temple dedicated to Mazu in various seaside cities-this geographical and historical distribution coincides with the contemporary economic or industrial area of Chinese society. It is frustrating that rapid economic development has led to global warming. The factories located on the coast of southern China from all over the world will eventually cause flooding and inundate these temples dedicated to Mazu. This is indeed a very ironic discovery for our civilization, "We", not only Chinese or all human beings, now or in the past, how can we Chinese avoid this upcoming tragedy?
More info →
Springtime in Wushan
2003 · ★ 8
Zhang Ming went back to his hometown Wushan to record the last images before it being changed forever by the upcoming Three Gorges Dam.
More info →
THE CROCODILE WITHOUT A TAIL
2022
In order to finish her homework, the girl decided to shoot a fake documentary. In the process, she came closer to her grandmother's world and found herself.
More info →