Boasting a centrally located Chinatown and a prominent Chinese presence throughout, the Dutch port city of Rotterdam has never offered too stern a test for people seeking a helping of Chinese culture. But even seasoned local sinophiles would have been surprised by what was on offer recently at De Doelen, the city's main central cultural centre. For nine days, visitors seated on rattan seats and mats could consume Chinese tea and an assortment of dim sum while watching martial arts, musical and theatrical performances unfold before them.
This is 'Tiger Water Inn', an installation which forms part of a programme of the same name dedicated to Chinese wuxia films at the 40th edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, which ran from January 26 to February 6. The brainchild of one of the festival's programmers, the Taiwan-born but now Paris-based Chinlin Hsieh, the venue allows visitors to venture physically into one of the most visible locales in martial arts films - the tavern - and experience the many art forms which contribute to wuxia (the genre of chivalric martial arts). The five Taiwanese performers she recruited were experts in Peking opera, pingshu (storytelling), nanguan music, puppetry and martial arts.
Hsieh says this expanded segment of the 20-film programme - which ranges from silent fare of the 1920s and 30s to recent releases such as Ip Man and Reign of Assassins, via works by King Hu (the seminal Dragon Gate Inn and the three-hour director's cut of Legends from the Mountain) and Chang Cheh (Golden Swallow) - was designed to add another dimension to the exploration and discussion of what she deems as 'probably the most representative genre in Asian cinema'.
'Through this installation, I hope people will realise that wuxia has existed throughout the history of Chinese artistic and literary traditions, well before the invention of cinema,' she says.
The Tiger Water Inn programme is itself representative of the Rotterdam festival's dedication to the development of Chinese cinema. Founded in 1972 by Hubert Bals, a larger-than-life cinephile and film-industry mover well known for his enthusiasm for 'the masters of cinema' emerging from outside the Western hemisphere, the Rotterdam festival has provided the springboard for unsung filmmakers from Asia and Latin America through its long-held mission of showcasing work from outside the Euro-American mainstream. Specifically, it has also served as the platform for Chinese independent filmmakers who have found it difficult to get their voices heard at home. Among those who won the festival's Tiger Awards are He Jianjun (The Postman, 1995), Zhang Yuan (Sons, 1996), Lou Ye (Suzhou River, 2000) and Han Jie (Walk of the Wild Side, 2006).
According to the festival's director, Rutger Wolfson, the long-running relationship between the Rotterdam festival and Chinese independent filmmakers was intensified by the festival's 23-year-old Hubert Bals Fund (named for the festival's late founder), which accords grants of up to Euro30,000 (HK$317,000) for script development, post-production and distribution of projects from directors hailing from developing countries. 'We supported a lot of independent Chinese filmmakers, like Wang Bing,' says Wolfson, referring to the grant which facilitated Wang's completion of West of the Tracks, a three-part documentary about post-industrial decay on the mainland which propelled the director to international acclaim.
Despite the absence of Chinese entries in the Tiger Awards competition this year, the festival actively fostered discussion about Chinese cinema and China in this edition. In addition to the 'Water Tiger Inn' section, the festival played host to 'Raiding Africa', a programme in which the festival funded the visit of seven young African filmmakers to China. They spent weeks living in an artistic enclave outside Beijing and made short films in collaboration with Chinese technical crew and (non-professional) actors. This resulted in wildly varying end-products, ranging from documentaries chronicling the filmmakers' experiences to fictional tales about inter-cultural romance and the impact of Aids on everyday life.