Media
11.06.24
ChinaFile Presents: ‘Nikah,’ a Film Screening and Discussion
The film ‘Nikah,’ set in China’s Uyghur region in 2017, spans the months between two weddings. It follows Dilber, a young woman approaching a crossroads amid the Chinese government’s surveilling and detaining of members of her community. As even her...
The China Africa Project
11.21.17
A New Generation Looks at the China-Africa Relationship
Independent filmmakers Jidi Guo and Philip Man join Eric and Cobus to discuss their new documentary about how a new generation is responding to China’s growing influence in Kenya. This is the first documentary produced by the Shanghai-based pair,...
Culture
06.29.16
Using Free Sex to Expose Sexual Abuse in China
Nanfu Wang hoped that a woman called Ye Haiyan (“Hooligan Sparrow”), who had offered free sex on the Internet to draw attention to the plight of poor women selling their bodies to support their children, would lead her to the prostitutes she wanted...
Culture
08.20.15
Banned in China, Independent Chinese Films Come to New York
Three years ago this week I watched the 9th Beijing Independent Film Festival crumble under the weight of official fear—fear that the gritty low-budget, experimental dramas and documentaries screening in a remote Beijing suburb reflected a touch...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.09.14Environmental Filmmakers Have Rare Impact in China
Associated Press
One clip shows a girl swatting flies from a younger child among piles of trash. Another has children blowing up used medical gloves like balloons. The footage is on the computer screen of Wang Jiuliang as he edits his second film about waste harming...
ChinaFile Recommends
10.04.13‘A Touch of Sin,’ Four Tales from China by Jia Zhangke
New York Times
A blistering fictionalized tale straight out of China, “A Touch of Sin” is at once monumental and human scale. A story of lives rocked by violence, it has the urgency of a screaming headline but one inscribed with emotional weight...
ChinaFile Recommends
09.05.13The Death of Independent Cinema in China
Caijing
After wrangling with the authorities all day August 25, on what was supposed to be the opening of the festival on the rural outskirts of Beijing, this year’s Beijing Independent Film Festival has been cancelled.
ChinaFile Recommends
04.16.13The Dangerous World Of Independent Film In China
Le Monde
An interview with Zhang Xianmin, founder of one of the many independent cultural events that were banned last year by the Chinese government.
Video
01.29.13
Director Zhang Yuan, Still Kicking
Zhang Yuan, a veteran rebel among Chinese filmmakers, recently came to New York for the premiere of his film Beijing Flickers at the Global Lens 2013 series at the Museum of Modern Art. Ever since Mama, his 1990 debut about a mother and her mentally...
Culture
01.17.13
An Alternative Top Ten
Most accounts of the last year in Chinese cinema are dominated by films that were made for the ever-expanding domestic box office, and the local film industry’s struggle for screen time in competition with Hollywood imports.
On the one hand, we...