The Artists of Yuanmingyuan

This landmark documentary reveals the tragic life of a gifted young woman who was executed for speaking out during the height of Chairman Mao’s rule.

Spark was an underground publication that emerged in Gansu province in 1960, and was centered on the ongoing famine and the Great Leap Forward. Ultimately, 43 people, including the Rightist teachers and students who were connected with the publication, the peasants and the rural cadres who sympathized with them, were arrested and given long prison terms. Among them, three key figures were executed during the Cultural Revolution.

The launch and development of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution not only has a series of CCP Central Committee documents that have promoted wave after wave of movements, but also has various propaganda methods. A large number of different types of literary and artistic products have been produced in a collective form and with the input of the State. As a weapon of revolutionary struggle, works of art are important representatives of this period. Art was a tool for the Cultural Revolution; it fully embodies its aesthetic characteristics, actively cooperating with the development of various movements and the popularization of ideas. It has cultivated the values ​​and visual experience of a generation of Chinese people — the paintings of the Cultural Revolution have been regarded as treasures by Chinese collectors. This film shows the characteristics of the Cultural Revolution paintings through a large number of paintings, as well as the bloody violence and despotism behind them.

One of Hu Jie's 'Farmers Working in the City' films. The city is developing rapidly, with tall buildings and highways. Behind this bustling city, there is such a group of people. They come from the countryside. Maybe they are not dressed well, or they have only finished elementary school, but they work hard with their own work. The piece of prosperity pays its youth and sweat. (Shot between 1997 and 1998)

Filmmaker Hu Jie uncovers the tragic story of a teacher beaten to death by her students during the Cultural Revoution. In 1966, the Cultural Revolution exploded throughout China, as Mao's Red Guards persecuted suspected Rightists. Bian Zhongyun, the vice principal of a prestigious school in Beijing, was beaten to death by her own students, becoming one of the first victims of the revolutionary violence that would engulf the entire nation.

This is a short documentary about a daughter who has been searching for the truth about her father’s death during the Cultural Revolution, but whom has found nothing.

Because of difficulties where they live in the north east of China, a husband and wife go back to their hometown in Shandong Province and settle in their hometown by the sea with three children. With no land of their own, they have to face the sea, and start their life again.

This is a documentary about coal miners. In the Qilian mountains of Qinghai Province, where the altitude is over 3,600 meters and the air thin, there are numerous small coal mines in which work around 200 miners aged 17 to 50. Every day, they must crawl through pits 60 to 70 metres deep just to carry out 30 loads of coal. Each load weighs 50 kilograms. The miners earn 500 yuan a month, without insurance. Miners normally suffer from pneumoconiosis after working four or five years in the mine and cannot work thereafter. They usually spend their wages on building houses, marriage, and tuition fees for their children. If they die in an accident, their family receives a 5,000 yuan pension. This film is a record of these working conditions, and of human labour. (Shot June 1995.)

In order to find such a fittingly inspiring matchmaker, the director visited nearly 10 matchmakers and finally selected the matchmaker in the film. The director then followed the matchmaker and witnessed the vicissitudes of life. In addition to the land, there is no form of art that can describe the heaviness of life and emotion. (Shot August 1995)

The Great Leap Forward of the People's Republic of China was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1958 to 1962. Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstruct the country from an agrarian economy into a communist society through the formation of people's communes.

A group of ancient Tibetan nomads live in the Qilian Mountains in western China. Their home is a tent made of yak hair. They change their location with the seasons — to allow their cattle and sheep to eat the best grass, while protecting the vegetation of the pasture. They stick to their traditional beliefs. The women chant scriptures from time to time while turning prayer wheels. In the evening, devout rituals are performed in front of small portraits of the Panchen Lama and the Dalai Lama. During migration, the families help each other pack their belongings and load them onto yaks; they ride horses, sing pastoral songs, and drive cattle and sheep along the ancient nomadic route. This film documents their journey — from the spring to the autumn. It is a spiritual and a practical life: Sheep are exchanged for yaks, wool for tea, fried noodles for money. Every cloud over the mountain has a divine nature; the sun and the moon are the Panchen Lama and the Dalai Lama. (Shot June 1995.)

This film highlights the collapse of Nanyang Education Group, the flagship of private education in China. Other private school principals, teachers and students, as well as scholars who study education, and some government officials were interviewed. They discuss the causes from different angles. Due to the marketization of education, in order to ensure their vested interests, public schools that originally held public educational resources have adopted strategies such as "prestigious schools building branch schools" and "prestigious schools running private schools" to privatize public educational resources in order to enjoy exclusive market share. The education management department is also willing to profit from such practices and use this competition to eliminate the idea of independent and pluralistic education. Under the protection of the monopoly of privileged interests and the "Promotion Law", many outstanding private schools shut down.

Wang Keqin was a reporter who dared to expose corrupt officialdom. Because his articles directly exposed stock market corruption and local government brutality to the public, people threatened to pay 500,000 yuan for his head. This attracted the attention of Premier Zhu Rongji. Wang was instructed to employ protection. This film documents Wang Keqin's interview experience in Min County, Gansu Province. Wang Keqin once wrote reports about officials oppressing the people there, which received widespread attention, so the cadres were brought to justice. The general public increased their legal awareness as a result of this incident, which also resulted in challenges to township governance. In the days that followed, the farmers who defended their rights continued to experience retaliation from the village cadres, and they kept calling Wang Keqin about their experiences.

This film narrates the tragic events that unfolded at Jiabian Gou Farm from 1958 to December 1960, resulting in the deaths of over two thousand individuals due to exhaustion and starvation. Originally a labor reform farm housing prisoners in Jiuquan City, Gansu Province, Jiabian Gou Farm was transformed in 1958 into a facility for re-educating labor inmates. It also took in over three thousand individuals labeled as rightists from Gansu, including university professors, county-level officials, military officers, professionals from various industries, and teachers from different schools. Amid the political terror of the Great Leap Forward, extravagant claims flourished, and an atmosphere of self-preservation and selective reporting of positive news prevailed. This environment led to instances of cannibalism being overlooked, even as people continued to starve to death.

Unreleased Hu Jie film.

The melody of the hymn echoes in the old streets and alleys of the city. This is strange in a country that regards religion as a spiritual opium. The small, messy street was full of old people, and they began to pray with the sound of the room on the street. On the roof, a simple cross gleamed in the sun. During the Cultural Revolution, Christianity was completely eradicated. In China's political environment, Christianity has always been regarded as an extremely reactionary and evil thing, and openly believing in God would bring prison sentences. After the reform and opening up, Christianity also resumed activities. Although the Three-Self Church under official control is orthodox, house churches that are not under official control have also emerged in various cities. This film documents the activities of a house church in Nanjing.