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Chinese Independent Documentary--Village Documentary Project :
CIDFA028:
My Village in 2006(Zhang Huancai)
Directors: Zhang Huancai
Length: 90min
Production Year: 2007
About the film and its director:
Zhang Huancai, a 47-year-old villager living in central China’s Shaanxi Province, enjoys literature and writing as well as a reputation of being the “Man of Letters” of his home village. Zhang learned to use a digital video camera when he joined the Villager Documentary Project in 2005 and has since become the most diligent of all ten villager participants. By 2007, Zhang has had over 100 hours of video footages in store, all of which are centered around his life and those of his village peers. Since completion of his first documentary short, Zhang shot and edited his first feature-length documentary My Village in Year 2006. This new film documents Zhang’s fellow villagers as they live their lives, manage their daily chores, and go through joys and sorrows. Zhang also shares with his audience moments of his family life, as he and his wife nag, tease, fight with each other while staggering on towards a possibly better-off future – typical hardship and hopes of the nation’s “rank and files.”
Director’s Statement:
Chickens always seem to be able to find their way to food. Smart or hard-working chickens are soon well-fed and so are their kids. I think farmers are like chickens – they have to go and find food every single day and only the smart or diligent ones become better-off than their peers. I myself am a “chicken” who is never content with being just fed well. Yet apart from trying to bring home the bacons, I dream of indulging myself in high-brow literature and digital video filmmaking. As a result, I am not well-fed nor am I able to provide a good living for my wife and child. My wife always complains that I do not know where I belong, while some village folks sneer at my dreams as they think I am craving for what I am not worthy of. Well, in every village, there must be a handful few who refuse to abandon their dreams. They may choose to focus on calligraphy and art or on dramas and literature. Like me, they do not use their energy solely on “finding the food,” so they cannot possibly be well-fed either. When I film my family life, I mean to document what Life means to these dreamers who live in the countryside. Besides, I would like to also document how hard it is for “chickens,” be they well-fed, ill-fed or averagely-fed, to “find their food.” It has never been easy for any of the “chickens” to make a living. We all have our share of hardship. This was my entry point to the production of My Village in 2006.
Director’s Bio:
Zhang Huancai, male, was born in 1960 into a village named Shijiazhai in Shaanxi Province. He is a farmer who occasionally leaves his village to find odd jobs in the city. Zhang joined Villager Documentary Project in 2006, with whose support he finished his first documentary short A Futile Election. My Village in 2006 is his first feature-length documentary film.