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Chinese Independent Documentary --Village Documentary Project :
CIDFA036:
My Village in 2007(Zhang Huancai)
Directed, filmed, edited by Zhang Huancai
Organized & Produced by CCD Workstation
80 mins./2008
About the film:
The year 2007 wasn’t anything special. Compared to 2006, our village’s lifestyle had not changed much. We still ravage the depths of our soil for food, explore every corner of our village for sustenance, and even scour every corner of the city to survive. We are like a flock of wild chickens with no farmer pouring feed; our village allows us all only a place to lay down our heads, while the city’s promise of work and sustenance calls us to scatter to the four winds.
The weather in 2007 was also very temperamental. Speaking for my village, the spring and summer were both extremely arid, so the summer harvest was lacking. The autumn rain was good, so the fall harvest was successful. The film also features a grain farmer’s complaints. He voiced his grievances before the camera in hopes that it would be screened before government officials, perhaps bringing him some compensation for his troubles; clearly, he greatly overestimated my abilities.
The winter of 2007 also brought several snowstorms, so shots of the snow make up the beginning and end of my film. The snow continued for four or five months, blanketing the village in a world of silver white. I love the village in its clean, white brilliance—perhaps too much, as there are far too many shots pertaining to the snow.
There was also a very important event in our village in 2007: choosing the representative members-at-large for our county and village. The members of our village associations say, “This has nothing to do with us,” but half of them still participated in the election. I filmed this whole process, and edited it into my film. As for the rest, it’s mostly just us common village folk living our everyday lives: our fussy, sentimental days; planting in the fall, harvesting in summer; then planting in summer, harvesting in the fall; people are born, grow old, get sick, and die; we eat, drink, and be merry; gamble our nights away; sell pigs and chase rabbits… Life, it just goes like this. So, all I can do is let my camera capture it.
Filmmaker’s words:
Who says chickens can’t have any fun? I am a chicken with a DV camera hanging around my neck. Whenever I approach my fellow chickens, as long as they don’t see my camera, they’ll say whatever they want. They’re never prepared that I might, like the Monkey King, suddenly materialize a camera from my pockets, the snakeskin bag on my back, the shelf of my pushcart, or the bamboo steamer slung around my arm. This is where things get entertaining: they are surprised, shocked dumb. But they return to normalcy quickly, get accustomed to this extra piece of equipment by my side.
I use my camera to record me and my fellow chickens as we “scavenge” for food. Although the other chickens have plenty of words for me—like “What, you have nothing better to do?”, “What the hell are you filming this for?”, “Look at you, busy as hell!”, one chicken even said, “Here he comes again, looking for trouble!”—but in reality, they’re saying these things lightheartedly, with smiles on their faces. I think this is because no other chicken has ever this intimately and faithfully, or for so long a period, recorded their everyday experiences, their every joy, frustration, and sorrow.
My lens is always trained on my fellow chickens, and even the chicken leaders get jealous: “Why do you film any old thing you see?” Perhaps the subtext of their criticism is that I’ve never filmed the leaders in our village. But I hold to this thought: Those chicken leaders have no lack of this kind of experience, but we chickens lack it. So, I make a habit of only filming my fellow chickens, and filming the chicken leaders only if they happen to be around.
Filmmaker's Bio
Zhang Huancai, male, was born in 1960, in Shijiazai village in the Shanxi province. He is a farmer who occasionally leaves his village to find odd jobs in the city. Zhang joined the Villager Documentary Project in 2006, with whose support he finished his first documentary short, “A Futile Election.” Since then, he has completed two feature length projects, My Village 2006 and My Village 2007.