China

On the plateau below zero 40℃, yak dung is the fuel without pollution and it can warm up the herdsmen’s houses and make offerings to gods. It is used as lights, walls, natural manure, medicine and toys. The artists can make a Buddhist statue with yak dung. Through yak dung, people not only judge whether the grassland is good or not but also the condition of yaks. Yak dung is essential to our plateau people. But the life without yak dung is getting closer and closer and it is the day we will get lost as well as the disaster will approach. Then we will be the enemy of the nature and kindness will also leave us.

A coming of age story about three young Tibetans trying to realize their dreams. The struggle to enter the modern world while holding onto tradition is palpable as a young woman waiver between teaching and a career in Tibetan medicine. Her childhood friends, a monk and a painter, also grapple with which direction their lives will take in this rare and intimate portrait of the daily lives of a new generation of Tibetans.

For Chinese parents, finding out that their kid is gay usually presents a major tragedy, with the big majority utterly unable to accept the homosexuality of their son or daughter. However, during recent years a fresh rainbow wind has been blowing over the Chinese mainland: a pioneer generation of Chinese parents has been stepping up and speaking out on their love for their gay kids. This documentary features 6 mothers from all over China, who talk openly and freely about their experiences with their homosexual children. With their love, they are giving a whole new definition to Chinese-style family bonds.

In the Greater Xing’ an Mountain of northern China, there is a group of people who share their life with the reindeers. These Ewenkis people came from Siberia over three hundred years ago. They have been living in the dense primeval forest and surviving on hunting and raising reindeers in their own traditional way. In 2003, the Reindeer Ewenkis came out of the forest and moved down to the new settlement built by the government. Now with hunting also banned, the Reindeer Ewenkis find themselves in a dilemma. Time is passing… the sounds of deer bells are fading away… Maria Suo, the last chief of the tribe, watches the changing of time helplessly. But does the forest the Ewenkis used to know still belong to them?

Each Floral-belt Dai village has a male “Commune-head” who take charge of annual collective ceremonies as “Village Sacrifice” and “Village Exorcism”. These are purification rituals and fete for the village’s god “Buzhaoshe”. Besides, there’s a “Village’s Chief Witch” who’s responsible for communication with the god through trance. This man and woman compose the traditional hierarchy of a Dai village. The Commune-head is picked out through a God election ritual. Every adult man of the village offers a clothes and a bowl of rice to the ritual. A presider weighs all candidates’ clothes with a steelyard. With rice putting in or out the clothes, he makes all clothes balanced. Then he prays to the god Buzhaoshe, and weighs the clothes again. This time some clothes turn heavier. The heaviest one enables its owner to be the new Commune-head. This is an old custom of the Dai people which lasts thousands years. But this year we witnessed an unprecedented challenge in the Areca Village. Through the ritual of several days, all chosen ones refused to become Commune-head desperately. The ritual could not be fulfilled in a panic. Villagers disputed over the situation. Powers conflict in this gambling. In the following days, villagers provided four solutions. Among which emerges the tension between tradition and new culture, folk belief and government agents. Days later, Areca Village held a full member gathering, in which villagers made their decision through “voice voting”. Two months later, in the Reelecting of the Village Committee, the old mayor of the village was voted out. A year later, the new mayor made nice to conciliate the tradition power. New balance was established over odds. This becomes the epilogue of this documentary.