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Chinese Independent Documentary :
CIDFA025:
Dr. Ma’s Country Clinic
Directors: Cong Feng
Length: 215min
Production Year: 2007
Synopsis:
Huangyangchuan town, Gulang county, Gansu province, China. It’s a place of arid mountain area with poor traffic conditions.
Ma Bingcheng is a respected local doctor. As for his good medical skills, many patients (most of them are farmers) come to see him everyday.In this narrow and small clinic, when people wait for seeing doctor or making up prescription, they usually chat with each others about their lives, local conditions, or the experience of people they know.
In spring, before set out to labour elsewhere, some people came to see the doctor, among them, there was even an old women near her 70s; Some women talked about a young guy who had disappeared ever since he went out to labor 10 years ago; A woman whose family once migrated to other place to make a better living, but was driven away and had to come back home; An old man at his 60’s suffered from silicosis, the disease caused by 20 years laboring in the small coalpit when he was young, he was the most long-lived coal miner in his village, in the end, he died of silicosis; A man once came to Beijing to appeal to the higher authorities for help, for his brother was beaten to be blind by villagers who bribed the local police; Once an advanced worker in 70’s, a grey-haired woman now leads a more difficult life than others; In the clinic, two old women met again after more than 30 years, the last time they saw each other, they were still young farmers working and playing together in people’s commune; Many people talked about the young wives bought from other places, they always tried to escape, which was very common in this place; Some people who once left to labor elsewhere got sick again, they have to returned to see the doctor;
As most young people went out laboring, the old generation had to do the hard work in the field. They talked about their experience and poor living conditions in the people’s commune, which was the root cause for their illness…
Summer has gone. Like the past few years, the drought once again destroyed the dream and hope when people planted the crops.
Before the Spring Festival, the most important traditional festival for Chinese, people who left to labor elsewhere returned home. In the clinic, some talked about their working experiences in the past year. They didn’t bring back much good news…
Life and death, illness and old age, they are just like changing of the seasons. Death exists, while life goes on. Dr. Ma, keeps on seeing his patients everyday.
This narrow country clinic becomes an open space, the information and experiences of different people who came to the clinic intertwine together, thus reveal the living conditions of local farmers, and the fate of the old generation and the new generation connected together. And I believe that the condition of the farmers in Huangyangchuan is not exceptional, instead, it’s something common in a wider range for Chinese people, especially the farmers.
The film has been screened at:
Religion2006 The 4th China Documentary Film Festival; The 4th REEL China Documentary Biennial
Man With A Remote Control 2007 Short film
Doctor Ma’s Country Clinic 2007 (The 5th China Documentary Film Festival; The 4th REEL CHINA Documentary Biennial)
Director’s Bio:
Cong Feng , Born in 1972 , Chengde city, Hebei Province, China.
1995-2000, Working at the National Satellite Meteorology Center of China.
2002-2005,Culture editor of weekly newspaper, The International Herald Leader.
2002 Poem selection, Invisible Train.
Photograph works were selected to the ‘New Chinese Photography’ section of Pingyao International Photography Festival.
2006 Masmediacspoeshitry, a long poem, was published By SubJam Studio.
2005 Began to make documentary films.