China

In 2017, we went to Gutian county, where the story of The Golden Wing (Lin Yueh-hwa 1944) took place, in Fujian Province, China, to produce a film about the Chinese customs of eating tangyuan (rice dumpling in English) and filial piety on Winter Solstice. This film is based on a myth that one dutiful son guided his ape mother to go home by this delicious food (tangyuan). The rural troupe performed this legend on the stage at first and then off the stage, and the scenes could be all places, such as the forest, the stream, the railway, the road, the courtyard and the ancestral hall. The filial piety and great reunion of family were fulfilled at length. What you could see in the film is that the descendants of The Golden Wing and their neighbors cook festive dishes, expressing filial piety in extended families, making tangyuan together and performing Big Dipper ritual of Daoism. All these in the film represent the historical connectivity and continuity of Confucianism and Daoism and farmers’ daily practice in the past time and the present day.

By adopting new media, this film The Winter Solstice in the Valley of the Golden Wing tried to pursue the three-dimension interaction through time and space on the web and apply new technique in the film to interpret the local knowledge, which might be not possible in the traditional documentary.

10/7  13:00

After 1989, the military training of college freshmen extended to nationwide universities.In 2017, the last batch of post-90s college students and the first group of post-00 college students entered the university campus together. The film records the management and operation of military training at a key university in southern China in the summer of 2017, based on direct cinema.

10/6  16:20

In November 1993, Tian Feng, a first class composer from the Beijing Symphony Orchestra, arrived in Yunnan, and opened the Yunnan Minority Nationalities Institute of Traditional Culture.

Tian Feng proposed the prinicple of “seek authenticity and prohibit adaptations”. He wishes to start from this concept to save the music and dance culture with “classical
characteristics” (his words) from the destructive forces of recent economic trends.
The Institute has always been financially strapped. As the difficulties and financial problems mounted,the institute staff have gradually deserted the Institute. In May
of 2000, the Yunnan Minority Nationality Institute of Culture was disbanded.

This documentary film is a story of ups and downs, devotions and frustrations, tears and laughters, and tells the contradictions between ideal and reality, individual and society.

For years, urban people have seen the mountain country as a pure wonderland. When they get bored with the city, they visit the mountains and enjoy the hospitality of the ethnic minorities there. The director and cameraman go to the mountains with the typical expectations of urban people — that the local ethnic minority people are supposed to prepare meals for them, and that local labor should be cheap.

Behind “Foggy Valley” lie the stories of Chinese country villages which are undergoing transformation.

In the Daliang Mountain region of Sichuan China, lives the ancient tribal Yi minority. Their priests are called Bimo.For hundreds even thousands of years, the Bimo have relied on memorized scriptures to communicate their people’s desires with the ghosts and spirits of the world.This film follows the story of three very different Bimos.

The Spell Casting Bimo comes from a clan famous for the power of their curses.He specializes in black magic rituals. One curse is enough to hurt, even kill a person. But with the Chinese government’s prohibition of these ceremonies he has fallen from a position of feared power to sad unemployment. The Soul Calling Bimo is the respected master of white magic. He cures the sick and calls to souls for help and good fortune. But his past hides sadness and pain. The Village Cadre Bimo: he is empowered by the Communist government with religious Bimo and political cadre status. He holds power in the world of people and spirits. However, when he abuses this power during the village mayor elections, he is dismissed by the government. Times change. But the ancient tribal stories of the Bimo continue on…