Children at a Village School [村小的孩子] (2014)

A documentary by director Jiang Nengjie about left-behind children focusing on a small poor village in southwest Hunan near the border with Guangxi. Of the 1700 inhabitants, it is estimated that about 900 are away at work, 80% in neighbouring Guangdong province. Children are often cared for by ageing grandparents. As one man comments 'only…

Miner, Horsekeeper and Pneumoconiosis [矿民、马夫、尘肺病] (2019)

A documentary by director Jiang Nengjia set in small mines in Hunan, initially in 2010-11. Ignoring environmental issues, health and safety (and probably anything else you can think of), a group of poor, badly-equipped miners (from Guangxi) are blasting and digging into the mountain to extract iron ore. The workers chat about recent mining disasters…

Innocent Prisoners [无辜囚徒] (2020)

Innocent Prisoners (set in Chengdu) claims to be “China’s first film on the survival of sexually assaulted children into adulthood”. Given that, it might have been better if the filmmakers had not produced a unbelievable combination of such a film and a rom com! But it is not only an odd combination, it's ultimately an…

Wellspring [在一起的时光] (2002) & Lone Existence [独自存在] (2016)

Two short documentaries (49 and 77 minutes) by director Sha Qing now available on the Chinese Independent Film Archive's Youtube channel. These are among a number of independent documentaries now available on the channel, hopefully to be joined by more and perhaps some independent non-documentary films which are difficult to find outside limited festival distribution.…