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Chinese Independent Documentary :
CIDFA032:
Bing Ai
Director: Feng Yan
Length: 114 minutes
Production Year: 2007
Synopsis:
After 15 years of construction, the Three Gorges Dam project will be completed in 2009. Behind the reality of this hydroelectric project, supposedly the largest in the world, are a number of astounding figures, including how many cities and counties are to be submerged, as well as how many people will have to be relocated.
Does Bing’ai belong to one of the 1.13 million migrants cited in official statistics? She was told to leave by the village cadres but she never did. The documentary named after her gives us a chance to see how she, a lonely and helpless woman from the countryside, has fought against them. Her only reason for refusing to leave is her reluctance to abandon her land. Her refusal to leave is for very practical reasons, yet the audience is moved by her humility and simplicity when at one point in the film Bing’ai speaks about her feelings towards the land while taking a break from her work, where she says “the earth can grow everything”. This is not a work focusing only on resistance, nor was that the intention of the filmmaker. Following her instincts, she stayed on the sites and stood by the powerless while they struggled. The tradition of “Standing with the people who are struggling” from Japanese documentaries filmed in the 1960s and 1970s has received continuity in this film, while the roots of this work are still deep in the reality and the earth of China. Feng Yan is drawn to her subject, and when Bing’ai rests, or in between her quarrelling with the local cadres, Feng Yan presents the process through which Bing’ai gradually and slowly opened herself to the camera. The account of Bing’ai’s life experiences is in fact a kind of one-to-one, giving the work depth and a human touch. There is present a determination and moral force willing to stand up to power, and at the same time, a kind of beauty, since this is a portrait of a person struggling to preserve dignity in her life.
Director’s Statement:
Of all subjects I've had the chance to film, Zhang Bingai took the longest to warm up to me and reveal herself. We'd known each other for eight years before she confided to me the story of her life. When there is water about to rise up and submerge your house, and you are burdened by the huge pressure to make final decisions, all the memories of your rough life come raging out like floodwaters breaking through a dam. I was caught in this riptide and I drifted, unable to move at all, enveloped in a story I felt as though I had heard before, and I even shuddered for an instant with the feeling that I had touched her soul. As Bingai talked unhesitatingly to the camera in between her busy farm work and heated negotiations with officials, I understood how all her past choices and actions were based on her own life experiences. As I was editing Bingai, I came to realize that parallels emerged between her history and current situation entirely in the order in which the scenes were shot. A life's richness and complexity goes far beyond our imagination. This coincidence made me lament over my silly and unnecessary efforts to try to "compose" the film.
Director’s Bio:
Feng Yan is a native of Tianjin. She graduated in the 1980s from the Tianjin Foreign Language College, majored in Japanese literature. In 1988, she went to Japan to study environmental economics and lived there until 2002. In 1993, she went to the Yamagata documentary film festival as a member of the audience and encountered the writings and films of Ogawa Shishuke. Later she translated Harvesting Film by Ogawa Shishuke into Chinese, published at the Taiwan Yuanliu Publishing House. She started making her own documentaries during the same period. In 1994, Feng Yan entered the Three Gorges area for the first time to do research and shoot her first film. In 1997, she completed The Dream of the Yangtze River, which was shown in Asian New Currents, at the YIDFF that same year. In 2002, Feng Yan returned to the village where she worked and was deeply moved by the changes of the people’s lives there. This time she focused on four women in the region. Five years later, one of the women’s story was edited into a feature film, Bing’ai, which took Feng Yan back to Yamagata where she won the Ogawa Shishuke prize. This film got the grand prix in Punto De Vista, 2008, in Spain. It was also in 2007 that Feng Yan revisited her characters to prepare for her next project: Women of the Yangtze River, where she attempts to weave together the stories of four women within the context of the relocation of people after the completion of the Three Gorges Dam. The result of ten years work, the film shows the changes in the lives of the common people, as well as their dreams and troubles.
“Bing Ai”Festivals and awards:
2008 , HONGKANG International Film Festivals:
Humanitarian Award for Outstanding Documentary
Jury’s Comment: This is a political story and a love story, a powerfully feminist and humanist story of a woman who embodies redoubtable resistance and an indomitable life force. The filmmaker’s dedication to her subject has resulted in a work of great power, fascinating detail, and rich subtlety.
2007 ,Yamagata documentary film festival
The Ogawashinsuke Prize
This is a film that gently portrays Bingai, a friend of the director and the subject of the film. It reminded us of a fundamental power of documentary filmmaking, the power to heal. We believe that this film is an example that follows the best advice offered to young filmmakers by the director Ogawa Shinsuke, the name behind this award.
2008 ,The Grand Prize on Punto de Vista 2008 (Spain)