Wu Wenguang is a key figure in Chinese independent documentary film and a prolific writer, curator, and producer. Firmly committed to bringing together different social worlds by blurring the boundaries between amateurial and professional art, Wu presents and discusses one of his earlier works as well as recent videos from The China Villagers Documentary Project, in which he distributed cameras to non-professional filmmakers from rural China asking them to provide their own visions of village life.

3:30 pm

Jianghu: Life on the Road (1999, DVD, 60 min)

The protagonists of this documentary are itinerant artists who earn their living by performing popular songs, dances, and sketches. Carrying the DV camera around “like a pen,” Wu Wenguang travels together with the performers and records their daily experiences as they repeatedly attempt to enter China’s big cities but are invariably excluded from them.

6:00 pm

The China Villagers Documentary Project (2006, DVD, 60 min)

The initial aim of the project was to document the implementation of a new system of competitive village elections. The works that resulted from it, however, deal with aspects of rural life that far exceed the initial focus. This documentary illustrates the different phases of the project and includes selections from the videos shot by amateur “villager filmmakers.”

Shao Yuzhen, “My Village 2006” (2007, DVD, 25 min.)

Zhang Huancai, “My Village 2006” (2007, DVD, 35 min.)

These new documentaries by the most talented amateur filmmakers involved in the China Villagers Documentary Project offer intimate perspectives into the domestic and social lives and the daily work routines of the people living in rural China.

This event is free and open to the general public.

Co-sponsored by the Committee on Chinese Studies of the Center for East Asian Studies, the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and the Film Studies Center.

Persons with disabilities that may need assistance should contact 773.702.2715.