Chinese Documentaries
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- DirectorHuijing XuIn the suburbs of Beijing, a group of troubled teenagers learns to play baseball under a 70-year-old coach. When an accident took place in the winter of 2017, local residents got evacuated and the baseball team faced an unexpected obstacle. With the World Series of the Little Pony League waiting around the corner, the whole team will have to pull themselves together and face the international competition.
- DirectorHao WuMichael McFaddenChina's top drama academy stages the American musical "Fame"-China's first official collaboration with Broadway-as the graduation showcase for its senior class. During the eight-month rehearsal, five students compete for roles, struggle with pressure from family and authority, and prepare to graduate into China's corrupt entertainment industry. Part of China's single-child generation, they were spoiled growing up but are now obliged to carry on the failed dreams of their parents. They must confront complex social realities and their own anxieties, and, in the process of staging "Fame," negotiate their own definitions of and paths to success in today's China.
- DirectorGeorge LindtSusanne MessmerBeijing Bubbles is a portrait of the punk and rock scene in Beijing, which as a subculture is barely recognized there. Center stage of the film takes not only the music, but first of all the attitude to life of the young musicians who deny consumerism and pressure to perform well. The Berlin filmmakers Susanne Messmer and George Lindt go on a ramble through the musical underground of Beijing and thereby meet people, who give them naturally and spontaneously an up-front insight in their daily live. Kind of a video diary it gives insight in a counter culture hardly anyone would assume in an authoritarian state like the People's Republic of China.
- DirectorKevin FritzStarsFan BoLiu HaoShuang XinJoyside leaves Beijing on their first nationwide tour of China. An American filmmaker, whom the Bass player refers to as a "horse-face" in the end credits, accompanies them to prove that China is not ready for rock n' roll and that in its current state-although humorous-is a nightmare for the youth trying to build its interest. There are scenes of dog being consumed but only after thousands of beers which appear to be in almost every shot of the film.
- DirectorJimmy Wang'Chinese Hip-Hop Underground' is an insider documentary following the story of Weber - one of Mainland China's first rappers. Weber's uncanny musical talents allow him to spearhead the creation of Chinese rap music - a free form of creative self-expression that spreads like wildfire amongst those struggling the most; young working class students and grassroots migrants left out of the country's meteoric rise. Even while Weber's music electrifies China's youth and gains a huge following, he is challenged by enemies posing a threat to his musical existence: state censors, on the one hand, and armies of state-backed pop stars seeking to steal the name of hip-hop for their own gain, on the other. Can Weber and underground musicians like him survive this assault? Will Underground Chinese hip-hop survive?
- DirectorJian FanStarsChen ShiBeijing, a city rushing toward modernization, is the coordinate of China. Covered in the mask of the night, desire grows. Taxi, swarming in the city, never seems to pause. A taxi driver, thirty years old, married for 7 years, lives in Beijing. His passion has gone, in a city on its peak time of passion. Passengers are, teachers, doctors, students, merchants, pimps, prostitutes, believers - In spring, the driver says to every passenger, "the sand storm is coming tomorrow." Summer comes, the driver complains to the passengers that his wife doesn't love him anymore. The passengers also have their own share of stories of happiness and sorrow. Someone is going through a break-up and it is heart-breaking; someone came all the way to meet his old lover in a night club of Beijing; someone told the driver, it's normal to have a loveless life. Autumn time, the driver tells the passengers that, he wants to be a monk, but where is the place with the absolute peace? Different passengers have different responses and answers - Seasons change, color of the night remains, in which resides the stories of the mix of dreams, desires, and human nature.
- DirectorJian FanStarsYu XiuhuaZhou JinxiangYu WenhaiIt is true that there is still tomorrow, what a pity that there is still tomorrow.
- DirectorHongfang ChaiJian FanStarsXiao LuLing LuoJupeng ZhaoManufacturing Romance tells the love and marriage stories of the new generation of Chinese migrant workers, gives an intimate look at the emotional and marital dilemma faced by two couples of young migrant workers. By tracking them through all the efforts they have made to get out of the dilemma, the film shows how different they are from their parents in understanding the concept of marriage. When the global trend of urbanization forces them to choose between loves they have been pursuing and parents who live in their hometown and need them to take care of, what should they do?
- DirectorJian FanIn the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake, 5,335 students were killed. As China has one-child policy, the earthquake took away the only child of many families. This film is about a mother -Ye Hongmei and her friends' different fate of having a new baby Ye Hongmei, 40-year-old, started her second IVF treatment to get pregnant. Her 8-year-old daughter was killed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Refusing to come to terms with the reality, Ye believes that giving birth to another girl would mean the return of her gone daughter. So pregnancy becomes an ordeal for her. Then she has to bear extraordinary pains: she travels 50 miles every day just to receive injections and blood tests. Can she make it?
- DirectorJian FanStarsChen JunXiaofeng LiA family fights to protect their way of life in Beijing's troubled land economy.
- DirectorYifan LiStarsYifan LiWe Were Smart, gives a rare look into the life and struggles of this group of marginalized, often poor rural youths through their own accounts. It has helped reopen old wounds and spark conversations around class and conformity, over a decade on from the vicious take down that marked the end of the shamate movement. Focused largely around rural migrant workers who'd traveled to China's cities to get in on, and help power, the country's economic boom, shamate was largely identified by its outlandish fashion sense, makeup and hairstyles. Spreading through dedicated online forums, the subculture's name came from the Chinese transliteration for the word "smart" - "sha-ma-te." Li spent two years collecting 915 first-hand video recordings from former shamate members, as well as conducting full-length interviews with 78 of them. According to the director, almost all shamate participants were second-generation migrant kids who were born in the '90s and hailed from under served villages and towns. In the documentary, one trend that emerges is that many of these young people were "left-behind children," kids whose parents had taken jobs in major urban areas, leaving their offspring with grandparents at home in the village. Many talk of only seeing their parents on occasion, such as during the national Spring Festival holiday. Many of the interviewees also relay how they dropped out of school at a very early age and went to look for work themselves, often heading to manufacturing hubs on the basis of a vague lead or tip from a fellow villager. Once there, the young migrant workers found themselves in unfamiliar surroundings and often in intense, exploitative working arrangements. In search of an outlet for pent-up tensions and a sense of belonging, they formed their own identity: shamate.