When we talk about ‘Chinese independent cinema’, we refer to an alternative mode of film production realized outside the official system, but also to a kind of cinema that gives priority to self expression, individual perspective, and artistic value. Born in the nineties, the Chinese independent cinema has seen in the last ten years further developments and changes, so that nowadays it should be distinguished by the cinema of the Sixth generation directors. [READ MORE HERE]
As we Beijing’s residents all know, the chai (拆) phenomena, that is, the physical demolition of the space, has dramatically reshaped our everyday landscape: cranes and rubbles, streets half built or half destroyed, new slums, entire neighbourhoods that have disappeared overnight, faster than ever before. In one sense or another, this modernization process, physically expressed in the urbanization process, is at the core of both the emergence and development of the Chinese independent documentary. The reflection about space is at the core of the Chinese independent documentary: historically, aesthetically and ideologically speaking. It inaugurates an alternative reflection about it, which determines both its new form and content. Therefore I am going to take the chai phenomena, that is, the transformation of the space as well as the different conceptions that it entails as my connecting thread in this talk. [READ MORE HERE]