Tag Archives: China

Alison Klayman on Filming Ai Weiwei

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Independent Lens sat down with filmmaker Alison Klayman to talk about the joys and challenges of filming China’s most famous artist and dissident, Ai Weiwei. Her film, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, premieres on Independent Lens February 25 at 10 PM (check local listings).

Ai Weiwei is arguably the most internationally celebrated Chinese artist of the modern era. At heart, he is a troublemaker with a serious agenda: to challenge the oppression of the Chinese people by their government with rebellious and irreverent gestures. His activism has cost him his freedom repeatedly, but he never seems to lose his childlike approach to serious dissidence executed with a wink. But what was it like to film such a celebrated and controversial figure? Filmmaker Alison Klayman gives us insider access to the one and only Ai Weiwei.

Closeup of filmmaker Alison Klayman with Ai Weiwei

Filmmaker Alison Klayman with Ai Weiwei

What impact do you hope this film will have?

I believe there are several layers of impact to the film. The first is that people get to know Ai Weiwei as a person, going behind the headlines and the iconography. As a documentary film, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry is able to provide a much more intimate understanding of Ai Weiwei’s character and motivations than a short news story can, and it hopefully means that audiences will follow his case as it continues to develop.

By watching the film people also get a window into many aspects of contemporary China they might not have seen before. I hope it shows China as a complex place, with lots of diversity of opinion and a rich community of artists, activists and young people who care about improving their country.

Most importantly, though, are the universal lessons contained in the film. It’s really a story about individual courage, about how creativity and finding your voice can lead to change, how social media is transforming our world, how rule of law and transparency and freedom of expression are important in any society.

What led you to make this film?

When I graduated from Brown University in 2006 I wanted to travel abroad to have adventures, learn new languages, and try to start a career as a journalist and documentary filmmaker. I started my journey by going on a five-month trip to China with a college classmate, and I unexpectedly ended up staying there for four years.

It wasn’t until 2008 that I first met Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. My first few weeks of filming were enough to convince me that he was a charismatic and fascinating character, and that I wanted to dig deeper into his story. I wanted to know more about who Ai Weiwei really was, what motivates his art and activism, and what would happen to him. I also thought that people around the world would learn something new about China by being introduced to him. Continue reading →

Newly Contracted: ITVS Announces Funding for Filmmakers Tom Xia and Alicia Dwyer of Xmas Without China

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The documentary Xmas Without China follows Tom Xia’s journey as he challenges a California family to celebrate Christmas without any products from China. Filmmakers Tom Xia and Alicia Dwyer are among several new recipients of ITVS’s Open Call Funding.

A scene from Xmas Without China

The filmmaking pair discussed the project on a recent visit to the SF. Check out the video after the jump…
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Now Streaming on Indies Showcase: Please Vote for Me

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The documentary by filmmaker Weijun Chen is streaming free until Saturday, August 20 as part of ITVS’s Indies Showcase.

Please Vote for Me chronicles the intensity behind eight-year-old students in an elementary school in China as they campaign for class monitor. Check out the film’s trailer below…

 

Live Chat on Globalization and Poor Working Conditions in China

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Filmmaker Micha Peled’s China Blue begins its free stream on Friday, August 12 as part of ITVS’s Indies Showcase. To kick off the online premiere, PBS NewsHour’s Hari Sreenivasan will moderate a live chat on BTB on Friday at 11AM PT / 2PM ET with Peled and others, focusing the discussion on globalization and poor working conditions in China.

The documentary China Blue follows Jasmine, one of many teenagers working at a blue jeans factory, struggling to survive brutal work conditions. Shot clandestinely and without permission from Chinese authorities, China Blue takes a rare and poignant look at the individuals who toil day-to-day to make the clothes we buy. The film remains banned in China.
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Ring in Chinese New Year with Last Train Home

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There is no better to film to honor Chinese New Year than Lixin Fan’s Last Train Home, which is coming this season to P.O.V. Set against the backdrop of the world’s largest annual human migration, the documentary follows the Zhang family who travel home on Chinese New Year to reunite with their teenage daughter. Watch the trailer after the jump.

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Adoption Stories Front and Center on P.O.V.

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Off and Running, directed by Nicole Opper

This month, P.O.V. presents two ITVS-funded documentaries about adoption including Off and Running and In The Matter of Cha Jung Hee.

Off and Running airs tonight on P.O.V. (check local listings) and follows Avery, an African American teenager and the adopted daughter of two Jewish lesbian moms in Brooklyn. On a quest to meet her birth mother in Texas, Avery begins to uncover the missing pieces of her identity.

Watch the trailer for Off and Running:

Check out some behind-the-scenes Continue reading →

This Week on Global Voices: The China-North Korea Border in Perspective

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Last week, a North Korean border guard shot four Chinese citizens, killing three, near Dandong along the tense border between the two countries. This comes just over a year since Current TV reporters Euna Lee and Laura Ling were arrested by North Korean guards at a different stretch of border in March of 2009 and sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp (former President Bill Clinton negotiated their release in August of the same year).

While China and North Korea historically have been politically and economically friendly, the increasingly erratic and provocative behavior of North Korea’s leadership has strained relations in recent years. That is precisely the story Chinese-born filmmaker Liang Zhao set out to tell when he went back to his childhood home in Dandong, situated on the border with North Korea. In his film Return to the Border, which airs beginning this Sunday on Global Voices (PBS WORLD), Liang goes back to his hometown only to find it vastly changed from his childhood decades ago. In the intervening years, North Korean President Kim Il-sung died and was succeeded by his son Kim Jong-il. China abandoned its isolationism and began trading with the West, further alienating its fellow communists in North Korea. North Koreans suffered a brutal famine, in which as many as 2 million died.

Liang talks Dandong residents and former North Korean citizens, and tours the border, even covertly entering North Korea to bear witness to the strange militarism of its culture and fearful behavior by its citizens. Border guards appear, and quietly ask for cigarettes and food. The film explores how borders are purely man-made barriers, and how common humanity transcends them on a daily basis.

Tune in to watch Return to the Border — premiering Sunday on Global Voices (check local listings)— for a glimpse into this controversial line on the map for context into the conflicts there that are making the news today.

In The News: The Latest on ITVS Programs

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[Werner Herzog] the last of the great auteur directors voices the role of a plastic grocery bag in [Plastic Bag], a philosophical short film by much-tipped director Ramin Bahrani.
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Old men with energy, high spirits and full capacities are inherently charming, and Pei, who has charmed his way across the planet and left a huge imprint on it, charms yet again [in I.M. Pei: Building China Modern].
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Host Michel Martin speaks with Edward Tom, principal of the Bronx Center for Science & Mathematics, and filmmaker Christopher Wong [of Whatever It Takes].
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Whatever It Takes is strongest when it makes precisely this point: that however much we embrace the “tough love” idea, it is by definition a small-scale effort.
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Lost Souls is the sort of documentary that approaches reality television terrain. Yet it seriously presents themes of personal responsibility and redemption.
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Anne Makepeace and Eugene Shirley Discuss the Making of I.M. Pei: Building China Modern

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I.M. Pei: Building China Modern follows the renowned architect I.M. Pei as he returns to his ancestral home of Suzhou, China, to design a new museum. The film premieres tonight, Wednesday March 31 on American Masters on PBS (check local listings). Beyond the Box recently caught up with director Anne Makepeace and producer Eugene Shirley to give you an in-depth behind the scenes look at the making of the film.

Producer Eugene Shirley with I.M. Pei

Was there a certain visual theme that you were looking to obtain for this program?
Eugene Shirley: Yes, indeed – and this is one of the fundamentals about the project that was set out from the beginning and that everyone on the team knew: we were looking to document the interplay between tradition and modernity. It’s an idea we kept exploring and Pei kept articulating, but it’s also seen visually throughout the film. It’s pretty much everywhere.

You can see the quality of the image shifting from the beginning of production to the end of production. What were some of the decisions that were made in terms of the type of cameras and equipment you used on location?
ES: Where possible, George [Adams, director of photography] and Anne [Makepeace] would discuss camera needs and I would throw in my two cents. This is exactly how it worked when we shot in Paris, for example, and one of the reasons why we got those lovely shots of Pei at the Louvre, as well as of the architecture. When we filmed in China, however, we often did not have the long lead-time required for us to bring in our own equipment – which would have required advance notice of many weeks in order to secure the necessary visas. We were committed to accompanying Pei on every trip he made – and we stuck to that commitment – but it meant that we often had to move heaven and earth at the last minute.  And under these circumstances you can’t always get the equipment you want.

How did you begin to select the crew for this project?
ES: There certainly was a small U.S. crew but there was also a very significant team from China. Our partners were the China Intercontinental Communication Center (CICC) and we were small by their standards. The CICC supported us with a team of executives, producers, interpreters, production managers, and drivers. The American team spun out of long-term relationships that both I, and my executive producer and sister, Anne Shirley, have had for many years. We tried to make sure there was a good working relationship between the American and Chinese teams – and then to keep those relationships steady for over a decade.

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I.M. Pei: Building China Modern premieres tonight on American Masters on PBS

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I.M. Pei, a leading figure in international architecture, returned to his Chinese homeland after seventy years, and designed a modern museum to house the antiquities of Suzhou, in the region where his forebears lived for centuries. I.M. Pei: Building China Modern follows Pei’s personal and architectural journey from west to east over the seven-and-a-half-year process of placing a modern building in the most ancient neighborhood of a 2,500-year-old city. With intimacy and immediacy, we experience the realization of Pei’s lifelong dream—and biggest challenge—a work that he ultimately defines as “my biography.”

Check out a preview of tonight’s broadcast below:

I.M. Pei: Building China Modern premieres tonight, Wednesday, March 31 at 10:00 on American Masters on PBS (check local listings). A co-production of Pacem Distribution International and ITVS in association with South Carolina ETV.