January 2009
Two Award-winning Documentaries About Chinese New Generation
The NAFF Monthly Film Series will resume its activity on January 31st . As the screening date is still in the Chinese New Year period, the program will feature two award-winning documentaries from China and Taiwan, Kindergarten and Burning Dreams. These two films were rated at the top of the list for the Audience Choice Award at the 1st New Asia Film Festival, andBurning Dreams won the award.
It is not overstated to call the two films cinematic gems. They are both quite different from many independent Chinese documentaries often seen on the festival circuits. Stunningly beautiful in visual style, warmhearted in narration, and uplifting in spirit, these two documentaries present a collage of unusual images of the new generations, and tell stories that are both intimate and universal.
Kindergarten 幼兒園
(China/ 2004/ Director: Zhang Yiqing/ 69 min/ Beijing Channel Zero Media)
Language: Mandarin + English subtitle
This film is an intimate portrait of childhood. Shot over 14 months, the film records the everyday lives of children at a boarding kindergarten in Wuhan, Hubei Province. It is pure and simple in style and through the actions and words of its lovable young subjects, it conveys universal themes such as the innocence of children and the loss of this same innocence. The film demonstrates how children are a reflection of the adult world and our values. As the opening line of the film says: “They are our children, but maybe they are us.”
About the Director:
Zhang Yiqing is a highly experienced documentary director of Hubei Television Station and a member of China Documentary Academic Committee. His films have won many prizes in both Chinese and international competitions. In addition to Kindergarten, his best known films are The World of Zhouzhou (1997), about an educationally disadvantaged person who becomes the director of a Western-style symphony orchestra, and Ying and Bai (2000), which is about the relationship between a giant panda, Ying and his keeper, Bai and the way in which the see the world in the year 1999. Both these films were translated into English, French, German, and Dutch and have been widely screened in the European and American mass media.
Selected Awards
2004 Rai International Festival of Ethnographic Film
2004 Most Innovative Documentary Shanghai International TV Festival
2004 Grand Prize Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival
Burning Dreams 歌舞中國
(Taiwan/ 2003/ Director: Wayne Peng Wen Chun/ 35 min/ Pure Films)
Language: Mandarin + English subtitle
This black and white musical documentary is the first film about tap dancing and jazz in China.
Liang Yi is an older man who grew up in Shanghai and moved to Taipei in 1949. At 17 his early exposure to rock and roll and to Gene Kelly movies during the 1950’s has made him a faithful follower of the Broadway dance world. Yang Yang is an iron-willed 30 year old woman who grew up in the 1980’s and is a cultural pragmatist who choreographs crowd-pleasing routines in hopes of becoming famous not only in Shanghai, but in China. Li Chuan is twenty-five and the leader of a group of young dance studentsfrom all over China who gather together in Shanghai to dance. He is rebellious and an individualist who has grown up in the 90’s against the backdrop of China’s economic explosion. These three share the same passion for dance, but with different underlying beliefs and approaches to their art. The interplay of their conflicting ideals and faiths reflects the changing dynamics of their times about dreaming in the most enchanting city in China.
About the Director
Wayne Peng is a renowned, award-winner commercial director with a long list of projects produced around the world since the mid 80s. He was born in 1964 in Taiwan and is the founder of Pure Films Ltd.. Among his award-winning projects you will find stunning commercials he directed for Sony, Samsung, Bank on China, Mitsubishi, Just Gold, Nippon Paint, Singapore Airforce and other major brands and entities. Burning Dreams is his first incursion into documentary. This project marks Wayne’s beginning in the realm of feature film. He is currently working on preparation for his first dramatic feature film among several commercials.
Selected Awards:
2008 Audience Choice Award, New Asia Film Festival
2004 Hong Kong International Film Festival
2004 San Francisco International Film Festival
2004 Sydney International Film Festival
2003 London Film Festival
2003 Vancouver International Film Festival
2003 Pusan International Film Festival
2003 Hawaii International Film Festival (Competition)
2003 Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival
