The Road taken: Controversial filmmaker Zhang Zanbo knows the true meaning of independence

In July 2008, Zhang Zanbo, then a teacher at the Beijing Film Academy, returned to his hometown to document the lives of residents in Suining county, Hunan, where the debris of rockets had fallen since the 1990s. That footage became Zhang’s first documentary, Falling from the Sky, which was later banned by mainland authorities. Zhang subsequently quit his teaching job to become an independent documentary filmmaker. In 2010, Zhang returned to Hunan where he documented the construction of an expressway over the next three years. His non-fiction book, The Road, was published in Chinese in November 2015 but was pulled off shelves and banned on the mainland this year for “unclear reasons,” Zhang said.

What is independent documentary, and how do you view the environment for it in China?

Different people have different understandings of “independent production”. I recently had a chat with a film critic who thinks dancing in shackles is also a type of “independence”. But I don’t think so. My version of independent production is a type of self-expression that speaks to my heart, without succumbing to ideological censorship, including self-censorship as well as market influence. It’s getting difficult to achieve that kind of freedom, particularly in this era flooded with philosophies of achieving quick success. The number of real independent productions is declining, and many creators have yielded to market pressure. Under such circumstances, it would be a luxury for me to talk about “environment.” It is, at most, a very small space that a tiny number of people still hold on to.

What made you decide to shoot The Road and spend three years documenting the construction of an expressway?

My childhood friend [Zhou] Binhe is a road construction worker. During our teenage years, I heard him telling many stories about people on road construction sites. This was the foremost reason for me to make a documentary about expressways. The second reason is more personal. I had just completed shooting Falling from the Sky, where I found my interest in documenting stories of the individual dignity and survival behind China’s fast development.