DOCUMENTARIES
Du Haibin
1428
Du Haibin's award-winning documentary of the earthquake that devastated China's Sichuan province in 2008 explores how victims, citizens and government respond to a national tragedy.
2009
Wang Jiuliang
BEIJING BESIEGED BY WASTE
Wang Jiuliang travels to more than 500 landfills, documenting Beijing's unholy cycle of consumption.
2011
Wang Bing
DEAD SOULS
Dead Souls documents the testimony of survivors of the hard-labor camp in the Gobi Desert in Gansu, China.
2018
Jia Zhangke
DONG
The great filmmaker Jia Zhangke travels with acclaimed painter Liu Xiaodong to Thailand where they meet workers in the throes of social turmoil.
2008
Huang Weikai
FLOATING
"The most influential, introspective independent documentary film since the 90s." - Film Art
2005
Zhao Dayong
GHOST TOWN
A remote village in southwest China is haunted by traces of its cultural past while its residents piece together their existence.
2008
Jill Li
LOST COURSE
When corrupt officials illegally sell villagers’ land, the villagers rise up in an unprecedented experiment in democracy.
2020
Zhao Dayong, David Bandurski
MY FATHER'S HOUSE
The story of an underground church founded by Nigerian missionaries offers a rare glimpse inside an immigrant African community in China.
2011
Wen Hai, Zeng Jinyan, Trish McAdam
OUTCRY AND WHISPER
A highly personal and sometimes uncomfortably intimate documentary chronicling women’s oppression and resistance in mainland China and Hong Kong.
2020
Hu Jie
SEARCHING FOR LIN ZHAO'S SOUL
A landmark documentary on the gifted young poet who spoke out at the height of Chairman Mao's rule... and her subsequent fate.
2004
Shu Haolun
STRUGGLE
Explores the cruel realities of sweatshop labor and workplace injury in China, and one lawyer's mission to defend worker's rights.
2001
Li Ning
TAPE
Performance artist Li Ning turns his life into art in this epic work of experimental documentary.
2010
Rita Andreetti
THE OBSERVER
A sensitive portrait that explores the commitment, tenacity and personal toll of China's greatest historical documentary maker.
2019
Hu Jie
THOUGH I AM GONE
Pioneering artist Hu Jie uncovers the shocking story of girls' school headmistress who was beaten to death by her students during the Cultural Revolution.
2007
Wang Bing
TIL MADNESS DO US PART
Using handheld camerawork and digital video, this extraordinary documentary interrogates mental illness and criminality, therapy and incarceration, and the relationship between individuals and society. Riveting, terrifying, tender—and unforgettable.
2013
Du Haibin
UMBRELLA...
Filmed in five different regions of China, UMBRELLA provides a telling look at the vast changes that have taken place in Chinese society.
2007
Wen Hai (Producer: Zeng Jinyan)
WE THE WORKERS
Follow labor activists as they find common ground with workers and help them negotiate with local officials and factory owners over wages and working conditions.
2017
Li Yifan and Yan Yu
BEFORE THE FLOOD
The residents of the historic Chinese city of Fengjie clash with officials forcing them to evacuate their homes to make way for the world's largest dam.
2005
Wang Bing
BITTER MONEY
Documents China's rapid economic and social transformation by following the rural workers who leave their Yunnan hometown to move to the city of Huzhou to work in its textile factories.
2016
Rachel Tejada
DIGITAL UNDERGROUND IN THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC
Six documentary shorts chronicle the changing state of China's independent, and underground, film scene.
2008
Xu Xin
FANGSHAN CHURCH
The inner workings of a Christian community in rural China, whose ways of life and worship are threatened by the world around them.
2005
Xu Tong
FORTUNE TELLER
The life of a countryside fortune teller provides a candid and deeply revelatory look at people living on the fringes of Chinese society.
2010
Xu Xin
KARAMAY
In Karamay, filmmaker Xu Xin helps a community break the silence nearly two decades after a horrible fire killed nearly 300 schoolchildren.
2010
Ou Ning
MEISHI STREET
Ordinary citizens take a stand against the planned destruction of their homes to make way forthe 2008 Beijing Olympics.
2006
Shu Haolun
NOSTALGIA
Acclaimed filmmaker Shu Haolun explores the culture and history of his Shanghai neighborhood upon its impending destruction.
2006
Cui Zi’en
QUEER CHINA, 'COMRADE' CHINA
Considered China's first queer novelist and filmmaker, Cui Zi'en puts forth nothing less than the most authoritative account of queer cultural history in China to date.
2008
Hu Jie
SPARK
In this incendiary film, artist Hu Jie shares the testimony of the brave survivors of the political magazine Spark for the first time.
2019
Jian Yi
SUPER, GIRLS!
Follows ten young women on their quest to become instant superstars on China's biggest television show.
2007
Hu Jie
THE EAST WIND STATE FARM
An extraordinary film re-examining the tragic events of Chinese modern history during the height of Maoist rule, featuring dozens of extensive interviews with both inmates and staff who served through three decades of the camp's existence.
2009
Zhu Rikun
THE QUESTIONING
At 12 o'clock at night, policemen came to our room and started a so-called 'room inspection.' As they began to knock at the door, I turned on a small camcorder. This film is the record of what followed.
2013
Wang Bing
THREE SISTERS
One of his generation's most important documentary filmmakers, director Wang Bing introduces viewers to 10-year-old YingYing, 6-year-old Zhenzhen and 4-year-old Fenfen, who live alone in Xiyangtang, a tiny rural village in the high mountains of China's Yunnan province.
2012
Yu Guangyi
TIMBER GANG (AKA LAST LUMBERJACKS)
This stunning debut explores a grueling winter amongst loggers in Northeast China, as they work with traditional methods through one last, fateful expedition.
2006
Zhou Hao
USING
An unusual relationship develops between a Chinese couple struggling with heroin and a filmmaker chronicling their addiction, in this provocative documenrtary on drug abuse, filmmaking and friendship.
2008
Jian Yi
WHAT'S FOR DINNER?
Meat consumption in China is skyrocketing; what does it mean for sustainability, public health, food security, climate change, and animal welfare?
2013
Yan Yu
BEFORE THE FLOOD II - GONG TAN
Yan Yu follows BEFORE THE FLOOD with this profile of the residents of Gongtan, a 1700-year-old village soon to be demolished by a hydroelectric dam project.
2008
Bo Wang
CHINA CONCERTO
An observational essay about public spectacles in contemporary China.
2012
Huang Weikai
DISORDER
Footage from a dozen amateur videographers becomes a symphony of urban social dysfunction in China.
2009
Yang Mingming
FEMALE DIRECTORS
When job prospects elude them, two twenty-something art school graduates decide to film each other's lives instead.
2012
Ban Zhongyi
GAI SHANXI AND HER SISTERS
The story of one woman's brutal ordeal as a "comfort woman" for the Japanese Army during World War II.
2007
Yi Cui
LATE SUMMER
LATE SUMMER captures a centuries-old Beijing theatre in its incarnation as a modern-day transient space.
2016
Xu Huijing
MOTHERS
A gripping cinema verite documentary that shows how China's one-child policy plays out in the daily lives of women in one Chinese village.
2013
Yi Cui
OF SHADOWS
A rare glimpse into the nomadic lives of master puppeteers, against the backdrop of a country in constant transition.
2016
Ou Ning, Cao Fei
SAN YUAN LI
Armed with video cameras, twelve artists present a highly stylized portrait of SAN YUAN LI, a traditional village besieged by China's urban sprawl.
2003
Zhao Dayong
STREET LIFE
The hidden lives of homeless migrants who survive in the shadows of one of Shanghai's most affluent and historic streets.
2006
Wang Bing
TA'ANG
A powerful and revealing observational documentary that follows members of the Ta’ang minority as they flee to China to escape an ongoing and escalating civil war.
2016
J.P. Sniadecki
THE IRON MINISTRY
Filmed over three years on China's railways, J. P. Sniadecki's masterful, critically acclaimed documentary traces the vast interiors of a country on the move.
2014
Zhou Hao
THE TRANSITION PERIOD
With unprecedented access to a Communist Party leader, investigative filmmaker Zhou Hao offers a startlingly candid look inside Chinese politics at the local level.
2009
Yi Cui
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
On a high-land Tibetan pasture, a screening event unfolds quietly. Monks, herdsmen and their families gather by the screen to observe life captured through their own lenses.
2017
Xu Xin
TORCH TROUPES
In this vivid portrait of China's musical heritage, Sichuan Opera performers strive to keep a centuries-old artform alive.
2006
Cui Zi’en
WE ARE THE ... OF COMMUNISM
The mysterious closing of a Beijing school sends hundreds of migrant children on a desperate struggle to reclaim their right to an education.
2007
Ji Dan
WHEN THE BOUGH BREAKS
Directed by one of China's preeminent female filmmakers, this masterful documentary at once explores the particular dynamics of one family and exposes the widespread difficulties faced by migrants living at the margins of Chinese society.
2012