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Rotterdam 2004, The Trainee Project:
Chinese Films in Rotterdam
By Zhang Ya-xuan

Apart from a video by artist Cai Guo-qiang, seven Chinese feature films were shown at the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2004. In a certain sense, they represent not only the present of Chinese films, but also their past and future. Concerned with various aspects of China, they all might be realistic with diverse approaches to reality. Only Green Tea is an institutionalized movie and has been shown to the Chinese public at regular movie theaters. The other six are independent productions. But regrettably none of them has been made by a female director.

Green Tea

Drifters

All Tomorrow's Parties

Uniform

Zhang Yuan, Wang Xiao-xuai and He Jian-jun are the first generation of Chinese independent movie directors. Their independent films have been distributed and spread out at some Western film festivals, but still cannot be shown to the Chinese audience. It has become a fact that these pioneering filmmakers have helped in establishing China independent cinema, but today they have made different choices. Zhang Yuan follows the tide and becomes an institutionalized director. He still insists that his work reflects life and that he must get his films through censorship in order to allow them to be seen by the public. With or without the permission of national censors, as that might just be a kind of label, what is important is that Green Tea is so empty that Zhang cannot handle his so-called reality. If Zhang Yuan is an opportunist, Green Tea is at best an optional accessory.

Drifters tells the story of a stowaway whose problem is that he cannot be a father. It is not by accident that the middle-aged Wang Xiao-shuai begins to concern himself with family and ethical issues. Drifters is not a powerful movie itself, but it is definitely a honest one. Wang' hero shares the same fate as him: they both have broken the rule and had to bear the consequences, which turned out to be so catastrophic that they could do nothing about them. Every stage in Wang' life finds an expression in his films, which always maintains a sensitive approach to reality. In this sense, Drifters is more consistent than his previous films.

All other five films shown in IFFR are digital productions, which remarks the tremendous influence the digital era has on Chinese cinema. Yu Lik-wai's All Tomorrow's Parties has been made using HD (high-transparency digital camera). The main takes place in Datong City, Shanxi Province, where he shot Jia Zhang-ke's Unknown Pleasures. Probably due to his Hong Kong identity, Yu's film differs from the mainstream mainland independent film in its narrative mode. All Tomorrow's Parties is a story about the future, involving problems like faith, religion and the sense of loss. However, everything in it refers back to present time, as Yu expresses his anxiety for Asia's future as well as his fear and distress for living in such a reality that is today's. The excellent image quality of the film fully demonstrates Yu's skills for being an outstanding photographer.

Diao Yi-nan's Uniform was the only film in competition from Chinese mainland at this festival. A low-budget feature made by digital Beta, it won the Dragon-Tiger Award at the 2003 Vancouver Film Festival. Born in the late 1960s, he grown up in China's enlightening 1980s and graduated from China National Drama Academy. Diao wrote scripts for a few mainstream films before he made his debut with Uniform, a film about a group of humble people with both modest ideals and fantasy, as well as the hidden desire for power. Although it is a recent production, it gets closer in taste and temperament to those independent films of the 1990s.

The rest of the other three films are also digital-made. He Jian-jun provides a noisy and disturbing reality to the audience in his film Pirated Copy and tries to uncover the hidden desire underneath. Probably because of the participation of Cui Zi-en, a gay director whose primary concern is gender, this film differs considerably from all He's previous works. Still about hidden desire, this time it is more explicit and even subversive with a touch of surrealistic absurdity.

Zhu Chuan-ming and Gan Xiao-er are auteurs of this digital era. They both have studied at the Beijing Film Academy, but not in directing. Zhu has done two documentaries before. On the Mountain presents in a balanced way the everyday of peasant life in the quiet gliding time. Zhu got back to his mountainous hometown in Jiang-xi Province and recorded everything there. This film is not a documentary, but people from that area have a real existence based in the same kind of contents and that pass by following the same rhythm. A theist, Gan Xiao-er now teaches at the university in Guangzhou. He led his students crew to a remote village in Guang-dong Province where he made The Only Sons. Also about peasant life but largely fictitious, it states a salvation theme about the importance of the soul to man’s salvation in a time of religious disbelief. Faith has become an increasing big issue in the Chinese mainland, as proved by quite an amount of documentaries which border this matter.

All these films are mostly low-budget productions. Among their makers, Gan and Zhu represent the newest force in Chinese independent filmmaking, as they attempted their work like a personal project instead of following the regular mode. They fund their own films. Although their budget is surprisingly low to some people (only about 3000 to 5000 euros), it is still an astronomical figure for themselves, as they are not the only film directors that use DV and have to produce their own films. I have found at least two other feature films of their kind finished in 2003. The fact that Western film festivals can accept their films is in itself a big challenge for them. However, lack of fund happens to be an insurmountable obstacle to them and limits these filmmakers’ ambition. As Rotterdam film festival has the tradition of supporting Chinese independent film, I hope these young filmmakers can come to its sight soon.

Zhang Ya-xuan
© FIPRECI 2004

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