by Wu Wenguang
Translated by Odette Scott
I
hope you'll forgive me for giving this section of the program the same
name as one of my new films: “Bare Your Stuff” I’m also slightly
embarrassed to say that there are two of my own films in this program;
it’s a little like planting my own seeds in my own backyard. But in all
these five years of screening films at Caochangdi, I have never
screened any of my own work, so I don’t think I’m being completely
selfish now. But actually, I’m showing these films simply to explore a
thought: that under the name of “Private Cinema” we can investigate the
many potentials of documentary film.
So here I am, putting out
two new films in a single breath: “Bare Your Stuff ” and “Treating.”
They are newly completed works. This title, “Show Your Privates,” tends
to make people’s imaginations run wild, but actually, this film is
based on footage of The Villager Documentary Project, and tells some
stories about several villager filmmakers and myself. “Treating” is a
film that begins by talking about my mother but goes on to explore
memory and my own process of self-treatment. ?????????
Under this name “Bare Your Stuff” we’ve collected a handful of
like-minded films, pulling them together into a powerful fist. Making
up part of this fist are Odette Scott’s films, two films. Odette is an
American girl who mixed in with Caochangdi Workstation for three years,
and who, in one fell swoop, has made two films, “Falling From the Sky”
and “My Chinese Men.” These are her first documentary films. They were
made completely in Beijing, in this place called Caochangdi, and are
closely related to her own life and her surroundings. Her films' titles
are poetic and exposive, and I consider it a pleasure to have been one
of the first to see them. I can’t help but say, when a woman really
bare her "stuff" men can only clutch their heads and scurry away like
frightened mice.
In the end, I chose not to flee but to stand with Odette. In truth, she
was the inspiration for my two new films. On the outside I am Odette’s
teacher, constantly making advisory gestures at this new documentary
filmmaker. But actually, in my heart one thing is clear: as I was
waving my hands and kicking my feet to teach her, she was sparking my
unconscious. As I was appreciating Odette, I was inwardly celebrating
the fact that I, a guy over 50 years old, could still be enlightened by
a young person.
If I were to design a poster for this section of our program it would
be: Odette and I, standing side by side, about to fling out two new
films each, like we’re both holding a hand grenade in either each hand,
about to detonate. What’s going to happen? Self destruction? Giving up
our invincible Kung Fu power? Accidental wounds? Dying together?….
it’s unclear. At this moment, it is completely unclear. Wait and see.
Fortunately, Odette and I, one lone man and one single woman, aren’t
the only ones in this fist of “Personal Cinema.” Besides us, there are
several men, one of whom is Li Ning. While continuing his work in
contemporary theater, Li Ning has painstakingly made his new film
"Tape.” This film mixes realistic, documentary footage with footage of
his surreal performance pieces. His film’s main character is Li Ning
himself, and he not only reveals his body, but his heart and soul as
well. I just kind of blurted out these words “show” you know,? “your
thing,” but Li Ning has managed to capture the essence of what I meant,
which is to place his soul into the light.
Then there is Li Youjie. His new film, about returning to his village,
has been a time-consuming project, spanning several years. Youjie was a
young man who hurried off to the city for art, and then, several years
later, shakily felt his way back along the road to his village. He
picked his way back, sometimes a step up, sometimes one down, along the
uneven path. Like Li Ning, Youjie has strived to show his heart, and,
due to his efforts, we can see the realities of everyday life in his
village: we can reach out and touch a country family; oil, salt, fuel,
rice; one cent earned, one cent in debt.
These films by Li Ning, Li Youjie, as well as mine and Odette's, were
first screened this winter here in Caochangdi Workstation. Now, four
months later, after a period of re-editing and restructuring, they are
again being shown together here in Caochangdi, standing together to
“show something.” I personally am very excited. For me, it's been five
years since I finished "Fuck Cinema" in 2005, and here I am putting out
two new films. The footage in one of my films took five years to
capture, and the other film uses material collected over twelve years.
Now, with this program “Show Your Privates,” and the completion of
these two films, I would say that I have truly begun to use my camera
like a pen to “write” something personal. In 1998 I began keeping a
video diary and now this old footage is having an effect; now it is
mixing with material from the present to create these new films. The
limitless possibilities for my work in documentary only keep
multiplying. At this moment, I want to tell the people standing beside
me, all of whom are 20 to 30 years younger than I am: look at this old
guy showing you his thing, and see if he isn’t harder than you are!
Bare Your Stuff
Written, Directed, edited by: Wu Wenguang
Photographed by: Li Youjie, Xie Lina, Zou Xueping, Luo Bing, Tang Zhi, Wu Wenguang
Assistants: Zou Xueping, Tang Zhi, Xiaoying?Li Feifei
Video Technical?Wang Wenli
Translator (English): Odette Scott
Subtitle: Tang Zhi
180 minutes / 2010
Screen: 19:30, May 3 (Mon.)
Filmmaker's words
This film belongs completely to its editor; from my own angle and
position, it looks at my relationship with the village filmmakers-or I
might say, how we met and got entangled. According to my own
exploration of the "personal film", I'd say this one is "spoken in the
first person, brought from me to you." The film's material comes from
video recordings of the Villager Documentary Project from 2005-2009.
When I was filming this, it was meant only to be a documentation of the
project; I had no plans to make it into a film. However, at the end of
2009, as I was sorting through myself and my own issues, there ignited
in me a new wish for this material: to tell the story of my
relationships with these villagers-including how these relationships
have changed and developed-from my own perspective. As such, this film
just shows you a part of the whole; the point is not to detail the
Villager Documentary Project in all its successes and failures, or
count the ways it shines. It is simply about how these complete
strangers and I became tied, bound, and rolled up together-in a
sentence, it's about the grit of people's interactions behind the
scenes of this project. And it's about the phrase I keep wanting to
shout to them: "Stand your ground! None of you run from this!"
Treatment
Written, Directed, edited by: Wu Wenguang
Photographed by: Wu Wenguang, Wen Hui, Zou Xueping, Tang Zhi
Subtitle: Meng Qi
Assistants: Zou Xueping, Tang Zhi, Xiaoying
Video Technical?Wang Wenli???
Translator (English): Odette Scott
80 minutes / 2010
Screen: 16:00, May 2 (Sun.)
Filmmaker’s words:
This film started with me wanting to make a film to memorialize and
explore my deep emotions toward my mother, who passed away in 2007. As
I was making the film, my thoughts toward it kept getting broken and
shifted, especially as I sorted through the 12 years of footage I had
collected, seeing subtleties I had previously overlooked, or reliving
experiences that had long since gone by. Even more impacting was facing
the moving images of my mother, seeing someone dear to me who has
already left this world captured with such lifelike movements,
utterances, expressions, like it all just happened yesterday. Then I
realized this film is not just about remembering her?it’s also an
experiment to bring her back to life. Especially at a time when I’m in
a process of trying to heal myself, my mother is a crucial element. And
so, though my mother/ remembrance/ the present/ healing and
self-healing, this film’s structure and way of recounting began to
naturally materialize.
Falling From The Sky
Written, Directed, Photographed, edited by: Odette Scott
Subtitle: Tang Zhi
Translator (Chinese): Wu Wenguang
100 minutes / 2010
Screen: 13:00, May 2 (Sun.)
Filmmaker’s words :
The shooting of this film began when I arrived in Caochangdi in Beijing
on March 22, 2007. It began with a decision I made while packing my
bags in the US: to keep a video journal of my time in China. I have
been a meticulous journal keeper since I was a kid, and I wanted to
know if it was possible to use a video camera like a pen to document
the ups and downs of my new life in Beijing.
While this idea of video journaling is one leg on which this film walks, the other is something that Wu Wenguang said during a documentary film workshop in April 2007. We, the participants, were given an assignment to make a short self portrait video, and Wu said: "Your self portrait must not be about who you were yesterday or who you will be tomorrow. It must be about who you are right now, in this very moment." This film is the result of combining these ideas of video journaling and self-portraiture.
The realization of this film, my first long documentary, has been a slow, circuitous, disorientating and despairing journey, but the questions that have grounded me have been: who am I and what is China, as I experience it?? Who are these people I am living amidst? What does it mean to be an American woman in her 20's living in China with a video camera in her hand?
My Chinese Men
Written, Directed, Photographed, edited by: Odette Scott
Subtitles: Meng Qi
Translator (Chinese): Wu Wenguang
180 minutes / 2010
Screen: 19:30, May 4 (Tue.)
Filmmaker’s words :
This film, the second film in my Caochangdi series, continues to
explore the questions addressed in "Falling From the Sky,” namely, who
am I and what is the China that I encounter. During the filming process
I felt lighter under the physical and emotional burden of carrying my
video camera around and bring it out to film in different situations. I
was able to film very instinctually and haphazardly, liberated from
those confining thoughts about story, theme and topic. Only much later,
in the editing process, did I look to find a central theme upon which
to structure the film. What a wonderful way of working, this!?
One interesting problem for this film was that, at some point, the film began to guide life instead of life guiding it. There were a few times when I was unclear about whether my life was more important to me than the filming of it, which meant, I had doubts about the motivations behind my decisions. At some moments it felt that my life had become a kind of fictionalization enacted for the eye of my camera.
Filmmaker's Bio:
Odette Scott: In 2005, after I graduated from Hampshire College, I
dreamed of finding a mentor, a friend and teacher to go with me through
many years of searching and discovery in filmmaking and life. I began
to search.
In March 2007, I landed in Caochangdi, a peripheral neighborhood of Beijing. My intention was to do a six month internship with the filmmaker Wu Wenguang. I was 25 years old.
I am currently on my 6th 6-month internship at CCD Workstation. Besides doing small work for the studio, I have grown up there, found my freedom, learned a little Chinese, and made my first two documentary films.
I want to thank my
parents, for letting me go with so much love, and Wu Wenguang and Wen
Hui, for receiving me, and being the loving, compassionate, inspiring
mentors that I saw in my dreams. Thank you Mao Ran, and my big and
wonderful CCD family for being so patience with me over the last 3
years!
Tape
Written, directed, edited by: Li Ning
180 minutes / 2010
Screen: 19:30, May 1 (Sun.)? 14:30, May 4 (Tue.)
Filmmaker’s words:
This is my self-portrait. It is also my denial of the life which
belongs to me. I decided to use documentary to explore my ego. What I
discovered is that when I throw myself into desperate and extreme
situations, only then, when the real and the surreal become one, I can
use performance to renegotiate what is true and what is false into a
new reality. Without a doubt, I am a narcissist. I film myself. When I
emerge from this exceptionally outstanding individual life, I am not
trying to challenge anything, or rebel against anything. I am just a
stupid fuck in the eyes of others. Steadily living, a human being.
After making this film, I can at least feel like I’ve substantiated the first half of my life.? Over the course of five years, I have already turned into tape, firmly attached to Tape.
Placenta
Written, directed, edited by : Li Youjie
185 minutes / 2010
Screen: 19:30, April 30 (Sat.); 10:00, May 4 (Tue.)
Filmmaker’s words:
This version is edited with the footage I shot over more than three
years, during which a lot of things changed: my most beloved grandma
passed away; the frozen relationship with my family began to melt. And
most importantly, I dispelled the chromatic yet filthy fog, and the
once malignant tumors hidden in my innermost heart were pricked one by
one. In this way, making this film over these years has been a thorough
cleansing of myself and my family. Afterward, I felt released and my
heart opened. The film is like a corner of my own?built with my own
flesh and bones, in which I put myself, my grandma, my parents and my
clansman.
(Attachment: extract from www.hudong.com
Placenta: Drug Name: placenta Alias: afterbirth, human cell, chaos
skin, fairy clothing, chaos clothing, Buddhist cassock etc.
Properties: sweet, salty, warm.
Function: invigorating qi, nourishing the blood, conducing to pneuma.
Indications: deficiency, extreme weakness, hemoptysis, asthma, hectic
fever due to yin deficiency, spermatorrhea.
Dosage: 3.5g ~ 5g.
Contraindication: excess of pathogen, do not use alone for
the hyperactivity of fire due to yin deficiency)
Filmmaker’s Bio:
Li Youjie: Let me talk about myself first. I was born in October, 1982?
in Xiaoyi Village, Yao’an County? Yunnan Province. My parents and
ancestors are all peasants, as am I. I went to kindergarten and first
grade in my village, then I switched to Xiaoyi Elementary School? which
is one kilometer away from my village. In 1995, I went to Guanglu
Junior High School at Xiaotuanshan Mountain in Guanglu County? which is
three or four kilometers from my village. In 1999 I started to learn
painting at the Senior High School attached to Yunnan Art Institute,
then?in 2003, I began the film studies at the department of film of
Yunnan Art Institute. During this period, I was able to see the Yunnan
Multi?Culture Visual Festival twice. In April 2006, I participated in
the activities at Caochangdi Workstation in Beijing, and later in June
I took my camera with me back to my family and the village leave out
that I where I was born. I was just whistling in the dark but I had to
get close to my family and my villagers.
During the more than seven years that I was away from my hometown, I
was reluctant to go back home. When I had to go back, it was almost
time for Spring Festival. I took the bus to Yao’an Station and spent 20
yuan more to get into a van directly to my home, then I rushed to my
grandma’s. I felt I was more and more distant from my parents and my
fellow villagers, but I thought the farther the better! I intended to
wrap myself up. In my childhood, I tried to draw the portraits of my
ancestors and elders with charcoal, which was so real and joyful. When
I was in Senior High School, I used to draw their portraits, as well as
the grass and trees of the village. Gradually, when I went back, I
preferred to hide at the foot of the mountain where nobody would bother
me, and talk to the familiar mountains, fields, houses, trees, grass,
birds and bugs without deterrents. If someone showed up in those
moments, it would be a real killjoy.