The ProjectorYoung Chinese directors evade censors to give voice to ethnic minorities in child-focused films
- In movies that examine the lives of children from different ethnic minorities and social classes, China’s up-and-coming filmmakers may have found a way to tackle topics that would otherwise be no-go zones
A boy trying to convince his parents to buy him a pair of wellington boots. Pupils roaming around a neighbourhood earmarked for redevelopment. Young shepherds struggling to cope with schoolwork.
Tibetan director Lhapal Gyal’s Wangdrak’s Rain Boots , Qiu Sheng’s Hangzhou-set Suburban Birds and Wang Lina’s Uygur-language A First Farewell are set in different parts of China and feature characters from varying social classes and ethnic groups, but they have two things in common: they revolve around children and they have captivated audiences and critics alike at international film festivals over the past year.
Echoing the work of Iranian filmmakers such as Abbas Kiarostami, Majid Majidi and Jafar Panahi during the 1980s and 90s, these young Chinese directors have touched on subjects deemed no-go areas by censors. Wangdrak’s Rain Boots, for instance, shares similarities with Majidi’s Oscar-nominated 1997 film, Children of Heaven.
Starting as stories about a boy’s pursuit of footwear, both works go on to explore the problems shaping their young protagonists’ lives.
Wangdrak desires nothing more than a pair of rain boots for his muddy walk to school. But once he gets what he wants, the skies clear and there’s not a raindrop in sight. The boy is driven to comical ends to bring rain to his village, so he can wear his acquisition.
While a mostly lighthearted affair, Lhapal Gyal’s debut gently probes the conflict between tribal traditions and state-backed modernity in China’s western hinterlands.