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China

DEAD SOULS

By Wang Bing

In Gansu Province, northwest China, lie the remains of countless prisoners abandoned in the Gobi Desert sixty years ago. Designated as "ultra-rightists" in the Communist Party's Anti-Rightist campaign of 1957, they starved to death in the Jiabiangou and Mingshui reeducation camps. The film invites us to meet the survivors of the camps to find out firsthand who these persons were, the hardships they were forced to endure and what became their destiny.

DVD (Mandarin, Color, With English Subtitles) / 2018 / 495 minutes

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MAINELAND

By Miao Wang

Chinese teenagers from the wealthy elite, with big American dreams, settle into a boarding school in small-town Maine. As their fuzzy visions of the American dream slowly gain more clarity, their relationship to home takes on a poignant new aspect.

Filmed over three years in China and the U.S., MAINELAND is a multi-layered coming-of-age tale that follows two affluent and cosmopolitan teenagers as they settle into a boarding school in blue-collar rural Maine. Part of the enormous wave of "parachute students" from China enrolling in U.S. private schools, bubbly, fun-loving Stella and introspective Harry come seeking a Western-style education, escape from the dreaded Chinese college entrance exam, and the promise of a Hollywood-style U.S. high school experience. In one sleepy Maine town, worlds collide as students fresh from China learn to navigate the muddy waters of this microcosmic global village.

Through lyrical cinematography that transports us from China to the U.S., MAINELAND captures a new crop of future Chinese elites as they try to find their place between the collectivist society they come from and the individualist culture they come to embrace. As Stella and Harry's fuzzy visions of the American dream slowly gain more clarity, they ruminate on their experiences of alienation, culture clash, and personal identity, sharing new understandings and poignant discourses on home and country.

DVD (Color) / 2017 / 90 minutes

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WE THE WORKERS

By Wen Hai, Zeng Jinyan

Shot over a six-year period (2009-2015) in the industrial heartland of south China, a major hub in the global supply chain, WE THE WORKERS follows labor activists as they find common ground with workers, helping them negotiate with local officials and factory owners over wages and working conditions. Threats, attacks, detention and boredom become part of their daily lives as they struggle to strengthen worker solidarity in the face of threats and pressures from the police and their employers. In the process, we see in their words and actions the emergence of a nascent working class consciousness and labor movement in China.

DVD (English, Mandarin, Color, With English Subtitles) / 2017 / 174 minutes

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WIDOWED WITCH, THE

By Cai Chengjie

Winner of the top prize at the Rotterdam Film Festival, director Cai Chengjie's debut feature is, like its titular protagonist, defiantly low-fi, unexpectedly powerful and fiercely unpredictable.

Deemed cursed by the local villagers, three-time widow Er Hao (played by Tian Tian) has her hands full with a rogue fireworks explosion, a tagalong teenager, and a veritable army of crazed local men who can't keep their hands off her. Turned away when she seeks shelter from her neighbors and forced to take up residence in a cold camper van, Er Hao's future looks as bleak as the stark, snowy countryside.

But a series of fluke changes in fortune causes Er Hao to embrace the mystical identity her villagers have assigned to her. As a sort of modern shaman, she steers superstitions into small subversions, helping others who once shunned her and proving that to survive as a woman is a kind of magic.

THE WIDOWED WITCH fearlessly addresses the power of religion in China which, according to the dictates of Communism, is effectively banned. It also conveys the cruelty that can come with village life, and counters the Western narrative of China as a superpower by showing a place where the rule of law is all but nonexistent. Not only is there no recourse or safety net, even the rape that Er Hao suffers goes unpunished. Abused and shunned, Er Hao gains power over the men who have wronged her - but can she find a place in a misogynist, patriarchal and deeply lonely social structure?

With a stunning array of visual styles and a genre-exploding approach to storytelling, THE WIDOWED WITCH is a simultaneously idealistic and despairing film - a bleak view wrapped in a fabulist aesthetic, and one that encompasses both magic realism and crushing social satire.

DVD (Mandarin with English subtitles, Color, Black and White) / 2017 / 118 minutes

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BITTER MONEY

By Wang Bing

BITTER MONEY documents China's rapid economic and social transformation by following the rural workers who leave their Yunnan hometown to move to the city of Huzhou, one of the busiest cities of eastern China (with the highest number of part-time workers), to labor in its textile factories. But what they find are few opportunities and poor living conditions that push people, even couples, into violent and oppressive relations. The camera follows Xiao Min, Ling Ling, and Lao Yeh closely, capturing the emotions of their daily hard work and disappointments upon receiving their wages. The film deals directly with the effects of 21st-century capitalism, as filmmaker Wang Bing acts as witness to the lives of people forced to adapt to a new economic landscape.

DVD (Mandarin, Color, With English Subtitles) / 2016 / 152 minutes

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CHINA STORIES II

In the last few decades, China has been experiencing tremendous changes in her economy, society and infrastructure. Her leaders dream about revival of the Chinese race: domestically, they want to lead nationals out of poverty towards a reasonable standard of living; internationally, they want to propel the realization of an economic corridor, via both land and sea, and draft a blueprint for a rising power. Leaders have dreams, but what do their subjects dream about?

Each episode of "China Stories" shows audience around in China by presenting them with the stories of some characters, as well as some images, in the hope that they may understand what the present-day Chinese think, do, and care about.

1. The vanishing shadow
2. The invisible citizens
3. The Rise of Online Celebrities in Mainland
4. Guangxi 1968
5. Building a Utopia
6. Speedy Home Coming
7. The last animal tamer
8. Blind Soccer
9. Human-Elephant Conflict 10. Invisible Wings

10 DVDs / 2016 / 300 minutes

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CHINA STORIES II: BLIND SOCCER

Founded in 2006, China's Blind Football Team has got countless of awards over the decade. They never stop chasing their dreams even without lights in life, and they win for their country and their wonderful life. The team is heading for Rio 2016 Paralympic Games this year although full of injuries. After this game, they're supposed to retire, how's their life going to be? However, the shortage of young team seems to be a stumbling block of the road of the team keep running on.

DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes

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CHINA STORIES II: BUILDING A UTOPIA

In China, to live a better life, you have to be better-off.
Is there another way?
Tang Guanhua, contemporary artist, believes so.
He took the road less travelled by. And that has made all the difference.

In 2011, Tang closed his profit making design company and founded the "China Self-sufficient Laboratory" in the rural outskirt of Qingdao. For 5 years, Tang and his wife had tried to survive by their own wiles, producing everything from shoes to electricity, giving up prestige job and. The experience strengthened his belief that the more one relies on money, the less independent thinking they can have.

Now he goes a step further.
He strives to build a utopia - or in his words, an Intentional Community, the first of its kind in China. On a rural farmland in Fuzhou, Tang and his followers pursued their dream. Having the same visions and values, they want to form a self-sufficient community, sharing skills and talents. It should be environmentally sustainable and it should have its own social structure, education and welfare system. Decisions are to make through deliberation.

While cities in China are crippled by smog, mercenaries and wealth gaps, is such community an alternative for our future generations?

DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes

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CHINA STORIES II: GUANGXI 1968

Cultural Revolution in Guangxi

DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes

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CHINA STORIES II: HUMAN-ELEPHANT CONFLICT

Man vs Elephant

Yunnan Province is the last habitat for China's remaining wild elephants. Since 1992, due to the depletion of natural habitat caused by human activities, elephants have frequented villages in Xishuangbanna where they've destroyed crops and houses and injured people.

DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes

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CHINA STORIES II: INVISIBLE WINGS

In the Xishan District, thirty or so kilometres away from the city of Kunming, is a kingdom that is known for being a paradise on earth. Everyday, pilgrims from throughout the nation pour in. But the land of stories isn't all magical, even fairytales can be disturbing. The theme park is painted as a loving community but just like the outside world, the park is full of cliques. People under the height of 1.5 metres, who suffer from dwarfism like Chen Jianquan number at 8 million in Mainland China. They are seen as outsiders, and it is difficult for them to assimilate into society. What Chen Jianquan hopes for the most is to return to his parents.

DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes

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CHINA STORIES II: SPEEDY HOME COMING

In the last few decades, China has been experiencing tremendous changes in her economy, society and infrastructure. Her leaders dream about revival of the Chinese race: domestically, they want to lead nationals out of poverty towards a reasonable standard of living; internationally, they want to propel the realization of an economic corridor, via both land and sea, and draft a blueprint for a rising power. Leaders have dreams, but what do their subjects dream about?

Each episode of "China Stories" shows audience around in China by presenting them with the stories of some characters, as well as some images, in the hope that they may understand what the present-day Chinese think, do, and care about.

DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes

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CHINA STORIES II: THE INVISIBLE CITIZENS

2016.1.1 marks the end of China's one-child policy, allowing all couples to give birth for second kid since draconian family planning rules were introduced more than 30 years ago.

The policy is said to be an elixir for the aging community in China, albeit previous fine-tuning policy such as "selective two-child policy" fails to encourage couple to have two kids.

While kids that are born in and after 2016 are "contributors" to the aging problems in China, kids that were born before were called the "invisible men" simple because their parents.

As seen through the eyes of the second kid without identity, this documentary further examines the pains and problems left as a result of the one child policy and the greater meaning it holds about the essence of birth control.

DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes

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CHINA STORIES II: THE LAST ANIMAL TAMER

Taogou Village is a county in Suzhou city, Anhui Province, the only place where training animal for circus performance in China, it's also called the origin of the Chinese circus because 90% of the circus teams are from here. In the village, hundred of lions, tigers, bears are conducting "talent training" every day, there are over 300 circuses in the village with over 20,000 employees, annual income over 300 millions, circus becomes the biggest business in the town.

Wei Zheng joined the circus when he was in 17 and now is a circus owner, the 3rd generation of the circus family. Wei's family started circus performance over 100 years since his grandfather. However, the law of anti-abusing animal implied recently, the way of training animal is claimed as inhumanity, despite the fact that the circus industry in China has a long history, it declines as a result. As a national intangible cultural heritage, how will it survive? Is it time to be banned? Will Wei Zheng be the last animal tamer? All those questions are harassing him.

DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes

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CHINA STORIES II: THE RISE OF ONLINE CELEBRITIES IN MAINLAND

Web Stars - a New Force

"Online Celebrity" is becoming a trend in mainland. Through sharing their eye-catching photos or videos, they display a beautiful lifestyle that fulfills the aspiration of their internet followers. Furthermore, these online celebrities have find a way to turn this virtual fame and support into real fortune.

Eve Cheung, a famous online celebrity from Shanghai, has started her online boutique which sale over hundred millions every year. Adonis Liao, another online celebrity from Beijing, believes that the digital age allows even the most ordinary people to display their talents to the world, which he found good-looking is definitely an advantage that he wants to pursue...

DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes

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CHINA STORIES II: THE VANISHING SHADOW

Does the rise of GDP reflect the rise of a great nation? Wang shao-sen, Sen, does not agree. Sen is a post 80's youth who owns a silk cloth company in Dalian. Two years ago, he watched a shadow play show held by E Wen-wu, an 80 years old Chinese shadow play show artist, in an old cinema. Sen was impressed by the show. He designed to prepare a nationwide shadow play tour for the old artists. However, he finds it is hard to renew people's interest on traditional culture even he gave up his own silk business and lost 20 thousand RMB to promote the shows.

Finally, he finds a way out with an unexpected channel-internet crowd-funding platform in China. What will happen when the traditional culture and the new media collide?

DVD / 2016 / 25 minutes

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ONLY ME GENERATION - AN INTROSPECTIVE LOOK INTO CHINA'S ONE-CHILD POLICY

The one-child policy, a part of China's family planning policy, was a population planning policy of installed by the Chinese government. It was introduced in 1979 and began to be formally phased out in 2015

"Only Me Generation" is a documentary that explores the effects of the China's "One Child Policy" from the perspective of the policy's first generation point of view.

Almost 30 years ago, the Chinese government first introduced the "one child policy" to alleviate social, economic and environmental problems. Three decades later, they are now looking at a relaxation of the policy. The result is that the babies born under the current policy are a unique population set with issues and challenges that are different from those of other Chinese generations; most notably that they grew up as "only children".

This film provides a unique look into a unprecedented government policy that changed the rules of a society, impacted far more than a generation, and can now be studied on a variety of fronts. The film raises numerous questions and serves as a wonderful launching point for discussion and debate.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of "only children" in a generation of only "only children"?

What are the pressures that these children, the results of the policy, have lived under?

How have parental expectations changes due to family limits on the number of children permitted?

What are their social experiences now that these Only Me Generation children are now adults?

What are the ramifications, if any, of relaxing the policy now after so many years?

DVD (Color) / 2016 / 58 minutes

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SPILLED WATER

By May May Tchao

Spilled Water explores how the economic transformation of China is changing the roles, rights, and social status of its women. Wanting to connect with her 'distant sisters', decades after emigrating to the United States, May May returns to China and explores the very different lives of four women: a young rural farmer who, against all odds, became a teacher; a successful lawyer in a male-dominated profession; a divorced factory worker struggling to brighten her daughter's future; and an ethnic minority singer torn between her dreams and her responsibilities as a peasant's wife. From the urban hustle of Beijing to the desolate beauty of rural provinces, their intimate stories show us why gender equality in China is so hard-earned, yet worth the struggle.

DVD / 2014 / 54 minutes

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CYBERWAR: BEHIND THE FIREWALL - CYBERWAR IN CHINA

By Jakob Gottschau A half hour documentary about social media in China. With more than a half billion people online - China is the world's largest Internet nation. And on Weibo - the Chinese answer to Facebook and Twitter, the Chinese manifests themselves more sharp and critical than ever before. Embark on a travel in the digital China and meet some of the most controversial bloggers, and see what is possible to write and upload from a Weibo account before the Chinese censorship shut it down.

DVD / 2013 / 28 minutes

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ECOPOLIS CHINA

When one billion rural Chinese move to cities, our planet will change irreversibly. Finnish professor Eero Paloheimo and Chinese business magnate Zhang Yue are going to save the world by reinventing the city. Their utopias are very different: Zhang plans to build the tallest and most ecological building on Earth, an Eco-city in the shape of a skyscraper, built at world record speed. Paloheimo has designed a unique clean-tech test laboratory city, and struggles to get it built in a flourishing valley outside Beijing. Is the future of urban mankind in the cherry valleys of China or high up in the sky?

DVD / 2013 / 56 minutes

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CIRCUS SCHOOL: CHINA'S PRESTIGIOUS ACROBATIC SCHOOL

Directed by Ke Dingding and Guo Jing

Circus School captures the breathtaking feats of a new generation of gymnastic performers-in-training in a centuries-old form of Chinese acrobatics. Given the art form's focus on challenging physical limitations, many Chinese view acrobatics as the quintessential expression of China's strength and power.

The film provides a rare glimpse into one of China's most revered institutions, the Shanghai Circus School, where students aged six to fifteen complete a grueling seven-year program that prepares them to work as professionals. Through exhaustion, injury, and broken bones, the students strive for seamless and precise performances in an unwavering quest to be the best.

The film introduces Xu Lu, a ten-year-old girl who grits her teeth through injury and pain in the struggle to perfect her routine. Thirteen-year-old Cai Yong, coping with a growing weight problem, has difficulties learning a single-handed handstand; his teacher urges him to practice self-control and warns him that his failure will ruin not only his own life, but also those of his teachers and parents. The students' punishing exercises are contrasted with the seamless beauty and precision of their performances to cast a new light on one of China's most ancient traditions.

DVD / 2012 / 52 minutes

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HOWLING INTO HARMONY: CHINESE ROCK CULTURE BORN IN THE WEST

By Joshua Frank

Howling into Harmony offers a portrait of young Chinese rock musicians in Beijing and provides a glimpse into the lives of a generation awakened by Western cultural forces, despite the conservatism of their parents' generation and their government.

Li Yang Yang is an explosive guitarist who views his visceral noise improvisations as authentically Chinese music. Drawing inspiration from Beat writers such as Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs, he identifies with the rebellious American youth of the '60s.

He Fan is a Beijinger, born and raised. A rising young rock star and college student, he's known for his raucous live shows and anti-establishment lyrics.

Li Qing is a soft-spoken introvert who creates soundscapes that mirror the capital's incessant clang of construction. Her parents, though supportive, don't know what to make of her experimental music.

Howling Into Harmony provides a look at China's evolving youth culture that is rarely seen by the outside world.

DVD / 2012 / 44 minutes

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MAO'S GREAT FAMINE

Directed by Patrick Cabouat
Written by Patrick Cabouat and Philippe Grangereau

Between 1958 and 1962, China experienced tragedy on an epic scale. The "Great Leap Forward" was an economic campaign conceived by Mao Zedong to transform China's vast population from an agrarian economy to a modern communist society through the process of industrialization and collectivization. In reality, it led to a famine resulting in the death of as many as fifty-five million people. But while millions were starving to death, China's grain stores remained full.

Using previously unheard testimony by survivors, rare archival footage, secret documents, and interviews with the leading historians on this catastrophe, Mao's Great Famine provides, for the first time, an insight into the insanity of this disastrous program. Today the Chinese Communist Party whitewashes the catastrophe calling it "three years of natural disasters." This film examines the mechanisms and political decisions that led to the disaster, stripping away the secrecy surrounding the campaign and exposing the lie, which continues today, about the true human cost and who was responsible.

DVD / 2012 / 53 minutes

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TO THE LIGHT: THE DARK DAYS OF CHINA'S COAL MINERS

By Yuanchen Liu

The bright lights of China's booming economy are powered by the hard labor of the miners, who work deep in perilous coal shafts around the country. When a miner dies, his family receives a death pension greater than the amount of money he would have made in his lifetime had he stayed alive. In rural China, where farming alone cannot sustain families, miners have no alternative but to risk their lives daily, descending hundreds of meters underground to dig out the black ore fueling China's massive electrical grid.

To the Light delves into the hopes and struggles of the mining families of Sichuan, in western China. The father of two, Luo originally became a coal miner to pay the fine for violating China's One Child Policy. Hui, son of another miner, prefers to be a coal-train driver than to work far from home. For many families, coal mining has become the principal source of income and the only alternative to factory jobs in distant cities. The mines are notoriously dangerous and thousands are killed every year. Going deep underground, the film exposes the perils faced by these miners, the slim rewards, and dire consequences when things go wrong. In spite of the risks, the working poor continue to flock to the mines, unable to heed the warning that earning a living wage may also mean dying for it.

DVD / 2012 / 68 minutes

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BEIJING TAXI

By Miao Wang

BEIJING TAXI is a timely, uncensored and richly cinematic portrait of China's ancient capital as it undergoes a profound transformation. The film takes an intimate and compelling look at the lives of three cab drivers as they confront modern issues and changing values against the backdrop of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Through their daily struggles infused with humor and quiet determination, BEIJING TAXI reveals the complexity and contradictions of China's shifting paradigm.

BEIJING TAXI is a feature-length documentary that vividly portrays the ancient capital of China undergoing a profound transformation. The intimate lives of three taxi drivers are seen through a humanistic lens as they navigate a quickly morphing city, confronting modern issues and changing values. The three protagonists radiate a warm sense of humanity despite the struggles that each faces in adapting to new realities of life in the modern city. With stunning imagery of Beijing and a contemporary score rich in atmosphere, BEIJING TAXI communicates a visceral sense of the common citizens' persistent attempts to grasp the elusive. The 2008 Summer Olympic Games serve as the backdrop for BEIJING TAXI's story, a coming out party for a rising nation and a metaphor for Chinese society and its struggles to reconcile enormous contradictions while adjusting to a new capitalist system that can seem foreign to some in the Communist-ruled and educated society. Candid and perceptive in its filming approach and highly cinematic and moody in style, BEIJING TAXI takes us on a lyrical journey through fragments of a society riding the bumpy roads to modernization. Though its destination unknown, the drivers continue to forge ahead.

DVD (Region 1, Mandarin, Color, With English Subtitles) / 2010 / 78 minutes

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CHINA NEW FACES

1: A Marginal Group
2: Marrying Into Her Family
3: The Mosuo In The Spotlight
4: Give Me Back The Natural Scenery
5: Returning Support To Rural Areas
6: Monks And The City
7: Sorrow Behind Redevelopment
8: Village Official As Blogger

8 DVDs / 2008 / 240 minutes

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CHINA NEW FACES 1: A MARGINAL GROUP

Peasant workers have made silent contributions to the reform and opening-up of China, and have witnessed the transition and development of the history of modern China. Peasant workers return to their native land and there is a shortage of labour in Pearl River Delta, Guangdong. Such phenomenon has become an important issue. Having strived hard to make a living in urban areas, why these peasants decide to go home? The reasons behind are worthy of deep reflection.

This episode tells the true stories of two peasants who work in coastal cities and return to their homeland. The two cases illustrate the employment problems encountered by peasant workers and the changes experienced by this marginal group in the 30 years of economic reform in China.

DVD / 2008 / 30 minutes

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CHINA NEW FACES 2: MARRYING INTO HER FAMILY

In a traditional marriage, a woman marries into the husband's family, and her children take on the family name of their father. However, in some rich cities in Zhejiang Province, things are changing.

The one-child policy has left some families with only one daughter. Feeling the need to carry on their family lineage, women now look for men who are willing to marry into their families so that their children could take up the mother?s surname. Meanwhile, men from other provinces are finding it hard to make ends meet in the cities, not to mention supporting a family. Because of this, some men are willing to do what it takes for a better life. With supply and demand in place, matchmaking agencies dedicated to this type of marriage are a thriving business.

This could be a win-win situation, but are things always as good as they seem?

DVD / 2008 / 30 minutes

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CHINA NEW FACES 3: THE MOSUO IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Sang Chu is a young Mosuo from Dazu Village at Lugu Lake Town, Yanyuan County, Sichuan. His family had been very poor until their family hostel, Gesang Garden, was launched in 2000.

The tide of reforms and opening-up in the new century has swept over the Mosuo at Lugu Lake. After some adventures, Gesang returned to his homeland before the National Day Golden Week in 2007. Like his fellow villagers, he was occupied with the business of his family hostel, making preparation for the Golden Week holiday. During the long holiday, crowds of tourists filled the quiet Lugu Lake with hustle and bustle.

The villagers were busied with touting for business and serving the tourists. Gesang's father expected his son would help the family to repay the low-interest loan soon. Gesang appeared to have devoted himself to the family business, but he was secretly seeking after the dream of becoming a superstar on television. He planned to leave again and look for opportunities despite objection of his family.

DVD / 2008 / 30 minutes

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CHINA NEW FACES 4: GIVE ME BACK THE NATURAL SCENERY

Thirty years of reform and opening up brings to China as much prosperity as pollution resulted from industrial development. Industrial wastewater led to polluted river, allegedly the root cause of the drastic rise of cancer cases in Wuli Village. Wai Dongying, a barely educated villager, recorded the death cases one by one in her "Diary of Death".

Zhang Changjian, a bare-foot doctor in Xiping, Fujian, witnessed the rising number of cancer patients in his village. As the regional officials turn a blind eye to the crisis, Zhang joined forces with more than 1,700 fellow villagers suing the chemical factory in their neighbourhood. Winning the case, Zhang found himself becoming a marked man...

The plight of the two "cancer villages" reveals the harm to the Chinese people brought by water pollution. China should have by now realised the price to pay for over development and that "good" is more important than "fast".

DVD / 2008 / 30 minutes

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CHINA NEW FACES 5: RETURNING SUPPORT TO RURAL AREAS

A group of advertising professionals lost interest in food bought from urban markets as large amount of pesticides and chemical fertilizers had been applied. To seek vanishing fine food, they traveled to rural areas and met the peasants. Under the surface of beautiful rural scenery, they witnessed the disparity between the urban rich and the rural poor resulting from 30 years of reforms and opening-up.

Ordinary picnics among a few friends during holidays have gradually become a movement of " Urban-Rural Interaction to Repay the Rural Areas " . Together with the peasants, these professionals make use of their creativity to work on farmland, pigpens, village houses and dining tables, and reflect on their vision of development and ideal lifestyle. They walk side by side with the peasants on the path of rural development, hoping that organic farming may bring higher income to peasants and healthier food to urban people.

Prosperous cities mark the achievements of 30 years of reforms and opening-up. However, such prosperity has been resulted from the continual support and sacrifices on the part of rural areas. Will the cities repay the rural areas in the future? Maybe it would happen in the next 30 years.

DVD / 2008 / 30 minutes

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CHINA NEW FACES 6: MONKS AND THE CITY

At 5 o'clock every morning, when the inhabitants of Anyuan Road are still sleeping soundly, over 10 monk students in Jade Buddha Monastery, Shanghai commence their new day as do other monks in the monastery. After praying and taking their breakfasts, these monks get on the "school bus" that is waiting outside the refectory, and travel to the outside world to study in a university.

Indeed, the Jade Buddha Monastery has been promoting the philosophy of "Living Buddhism", i.e. performing secular works with a spirit of indifference. Guided by such philosophy, the leadership of the monastery has selected some monks to study foreign languages and MBA, and strive to bring innovations to Buddhism, including the life of the monks. The monks participate in and organize social activities actively, and do not resist to act in a commercial way.

DVD / 2008 / 30 minutes

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CHINA NEW FACES 7: SORROW BEHIND REDEVELOPMENT

China is transforming with the construction of skyscrapers and modern architectures, which signify rapid economic development and the rise of a powerful nation. However, behind the scene of prosperity, many homes have been destroyed.

Zhang Wei used to reside in Xianyukou District, which belonged to a historical conservation district. Two years ago,the government demolished her home by force for reason of constructing new roads. It pushed Zhang Wei to the path of making appeals to higher authorities, and she determined to prove that the government had violated the Law on the Protection of Cultural Relics by carrying out illegal demolition. Unfortunately, the court delayed the trial deliberately and the police also hindered them from making appeals. It became a tough journey for her.

On 6th August 2008, two days prior to the opening of the Olympics, Zhang Wei was detained for 30 days on suspicion of undermining social order. The absence of an independent judiciary in China makes defending against illegal demolition more difficult.

There used to be over 300 households in Cuobuling Village, Qingdao. After illegal redevelopment carried out by the district government, only the household of Madam Yu remained. To persist in her defence, she had lived a life without water and electricity supply for over a year while expecting the court ruling at second instance. Being unable to seek help from the government, Yu Jian-li, one of the villagers, reported the crimes of corrupted officials on the internet. Consequently, he was convicted of defamation and sentenced to prison.

Although the Property Law has been promulgated for nearly a year, cases of incompliance with the law still exist. If the issue is not resolved, we will see more cases of illegal redevelopment in the future, pushing more people to the path of defending their rights.

DVD / 2008 / 30 minutes

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CHINA NEW FACES 8: VILLAGE OFFICIAL AS BLOGGER

"Don't think village heads are not cadres" was once a popular saying in Mainland China, meaning although the village head is a low ranking official, he is still a cadre and should not be overlooked.

Shen Yongqiang is the Secretary of the Communist Party Branch and Head of the Village Committee of Xiadongkuo Village in the outskirts of Beijing. Shen is no dimwit. In the summer of 2006, he started blogging to publicize his village, so as to attract investors to develop his ecology resort. It never occurred to Shen that his blog would record a hit rate of over 220,000 for the first two years. It even captured the attention of various media which then sent reporters to interview Shen.

However, Shen's putting village matters online has aroused concern and censorship from Town government. From Shen's happiness and trouble, we can see changes as well as rigidity of rural areas in China after reform and opening-up.

DVD / 2008 / 30 minutes

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WHY DEMOCRACY? PLEASE VOTE FOR ME

Directed by Weijun Chen

An experiment in democracy is taking place in Wuhan, the most populous city in central China. For the first time ever, the students in grade three at Evergreen Primary School have been asked to elect a class monitor. Traditionally appointed by the teacher, the class monitor holds a powerful position, helping to control the students, keeping them on task and doling out punishment to those who disobey. The teacher has chosen three candidates: Luo Lei (a boy), the current class monitor; Cheng Cheng (a boy); and Xu Xiaofei (a girl). Each candidate is asked to choose two assistants to help with his or her campaign.

To prove their worthiness, the candidates must perform in three events. First is a talent show, where each candidate plays an instrument or sings a song. Second is a debate, in which the candidates bring up the shortcomings of their opponents as well as their own personal qualifications. And finally, each candidate must deliver a speech, an opportunity to appeal directly to classmates and ask for their votes.

At home, each of the children is coached by his or her parents and pushed to practice and memorize for each stage of the campaign. Although their parents are supportive, the candidates feel the pressure. Tears and the occasional angry outburst reveal the emotional impact. At school, the candidates talk to classmates one-on-one, making promises, planning tactics (including negative ones) and at times expressing doubts about their own candidacies.

For all three children, the campaign takes its toll, especially for the losing candidates and their assistants. Viewers are left to decide if the experiment in democracy has been "successful" and what it might mean for democracy in China. Please Vote for Me challenges those committed to China's democratization to consider the feasibility of, and processes involved in, its implementation.

DVD / 2007 / 52 minutes

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REAL CHINA, THE - LIVING AND LEARNING

Part One: Psychiatry in China. Overview based on visits to a number of hospitals, interviewing both staff and patients. Extras include extended interviews with two patients and a group discussion with staff.

Part Two: The Real China is about ordinary people and their day-to-day lives. There are chapter headings that include school life, at the hospital, at work and a brief, very accessible overview of the political state of affairs.

Psychiatry in China - 14 minutes
The Real China - 28 minutes

DVD / 2004 / 42 minutes

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CHINA: THE DANCE AROUND THE GOLDEN CALF

As China continues to experiment with Western-style economics, many city dwellers already enjoy the prerogatives of a market economy. But how will China feed itself as more and more farmers flee their land for the allure of urban living? This program seeks to understand the effects of economic reform on Chinese society, from the villages to the cities. Will cultural values and the traditional arts and sciences retain their importance as China makes its bid for first-world status, or will they and the rest of the old China be swept away by Western attitudes, a burgeoning middle-class, and the country's new identity as a nascent economic powerhouse?

DVD / 1997 / 50 minutes

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