Chinese documentaries focus of Hong Kong film festival, with state suppression of the genre taking centre stage
As mainland Chinese authorities continue to tighten their grip on independent filmmakers, Huang Wenhai’s ‘Rejection/Determination’ gives filmmakers a platform
By naming his independent documentary festival “Rejection/Determination” and picking a crown of thorns as its logo, Huang Wenhai has shown how he feels about China’s marginalisation and suppression of the genre.
Presiding over a programme of 50 independently produced mainland Chinese documentaries from the past 20 years, the Hong Kong-based filmmaker-curator says he and his peers have created a body of work representing a “determined break” from both the official narrative and commercial norms prevalent in China today.
China is a closed space, so the most important thing a documentary should do is record things for posterity – so that in the future, people can unearth the historical significance of what was filmed
Huang says that with the availability of cheaper digital cameras, more people can afford to make films without the technological support and official endorsement of the establishment, and some have taken it upon themselves to record struggles for social justice. But doing so nevertheless attracts the attention of authorities.
“China is a closed space, so the most important thing a documentary should do is record things for posterity – so that in the future, people can unearth the historical significance of what was filmed,” says Huang, who relocated from Beijing to Hong Kong in 2013. “The directors were there documenting what was happening there and then. These are things you wouldn’t get to see first-hand if you’re not within that small circle of people granted access to the people and places involved.”
“Rejection/Determination: Chinese Independent Documentary Film After 1997” began on August 3, with the showing of Rong Guangrong’s Children Are Not Afraid of Death, Children Are Afraid of Ghosts (2017). And there are big-hitters aplenty, such as Ai Weiwei’s 2009 work Disturbing the Peace (Lao Ma Ti Hua), in which the artist filmed the state-sponsored intimidation and assault of witnesses (himself included) who planned to testify at the trial of Tan Zuoren, the civil rights activist charged (and later jailed for five years) for his investigation into the shoddily built schools that collapsed and killed thousands of children during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.
Ai Xiaoming’s Garden of Paradise (2007) is another politically charged affair. Revolving around the flawed trial and eventual acquittal of a man charged with raping and killing his girlfriend, the three-hour documentary is at once a j’accuse against China’s chauvinist legal system and a chronicle of the convergence of civil rights groups in their pursuit of gender equality in the country.