Springtime in Wushan
β 8 Β· 2003 Β· 110m Β· Documentary
Zhang Ming went back to his hometown Wushan to record the last images before it being changed forever by the upcoming Three Gorges Dam.
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The Starving Village
2010
This is my second documentary film, and it is fully composed of old people. One woman, nearing 80, is living out the last two years of her life. From when she is still using a cane to walk, to when she becomes paralyzed. This is my grandmother. We also see other elderly people from the village, their daily activities, the tales of their starvation from 50 years ago.
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Satiated Village
2011
It is the director's second documentary of "my village" series since she got involved with the "Folk Memory Project". She returned to her hometown to shoot footage, recording the realities she encountered in her search for memories. Her biggest question is: after experiencing the disaster of the tragic famine fifty years ago, the villagers now are not short of food, and are living a better life than before, but is the spirit of this village still starving?
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Children's Village
2012
Zou Xueping continues to interview old people in her village, this time with the help of local children. They start collecting names and money to erect a memorial for the victims of the famine.
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Doctor Ma's Country Clinic
2008 Β· β 6.2
"Huangyangchuan, Gansu province, China. It's an arid mountain area with poor roads. Ma Bingcheng is well-respected local doctor, so many patients (most of them farmers) come to see him every day. In his small clinic, people chat with each other about their lives, local conditions, or the people they know. The clinic seems to open up like a microcosm, the information and experiences of different people intertwine, revealing the conditions of typical Chinese farmers, and the typical fates of both young and old--"
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Water Margin
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Part mournful meditation through documentary footage, part experimental narrative. This film looks at the life of the Chinese who have been displaced within their own society.
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Disappearance
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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.
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The Temple
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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.
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Four Fragments
2020
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.
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Jin Han Yu
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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...
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No Destination
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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.
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Orphan
2017
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.
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Building Archaeology
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The documentary Building Archeology (jiΓ nzhΓΊ kΗo) (2011) considers the more recent past. Itβs 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.
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