The CEFC cordially invites you to attend the following seminar: Filming the Memory of the Great Famine-Wu Wenguang's Folk Memory Project

Organizers: Department of Comparative Literature and French Centre for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC)

Supported by the ANR-RGC project New Approaches to the Mao Era (CEFC - HKU).

Participants: Wu Wenguang, Zou Xueping, Luo Bing, Zhang Mengqi

Panelists: Esther Yau (HKU), Judith Pernin (CEFC), Sebastian Veg (CEFC/HKU)

Languages: Mandarin (and some English)

Description :

Wu Wenguang, a veteran of independent documentary in China, launched his Folk Memory Project in 2010. Since then, he and a group of young filmmakers in Caochangdi Workstation have been traveling to their home villages across China to find traces, through oral history interviews, of the memory of the Great Famine of 1959-1961. Through documentary films, oral history archives, and theatre performances, they have tried to locate and preserve another narrative of this historical period than the one recorded in history books.

There will be a film screening and Q&A session with the director and other members of Caochangdi Workstation. This will be followed by a panel discussion devoted to the question of unofficial memory, everyday history, documentary film activism, and the performance of memory.

Film Screening:

Luo Village: Pitiless Earth and Sky
Directed, Photographed, edited by: Luo Bing
English subtitles translated by Xu Yaping; Proofing: Odette Scott
77 min. /2012
(Screened: China Independent Film Festival, Nanjing, China, 2012, Yunfest,
Kunming, 2013)

Filmmaker’s words:

This film is the sequel to my first one, "Luo Village: Me and Ren Dingqi" (Hong Kong Chinese Documentary Festival 2013). Its title "Pitiless Earth and Sky" comes from Ren Dingqi's memoir.  He spent ten years on this memoir, documenting bone-deep experiences of Land Reform, The Great Leap Forward, the Three Years of Famine, and the Cultural Revolution... My film attempts a reading of his book to try to witness this history once more. At the same time, as I tried to open this memoir before his fellow villagers, I encountered all sorts of unexpected responses, and found myself  investigating the links between past and present and whether or not this village is still a "pitiless earth and sky."

這 部片子是我第一部紀錄片《羅家屋：我和任定其》（2013年香港華語紀錄片節）的延續，片名借用村民任定其的回憶錄名字“天地無情”。這部作者花了十年時 間完成的回憶錄，記錄了他所經歷的刻骨銘心經歷：土改、大躍進、三年飢餓、文革……我的這部片子是這部回憶錄的一次試圖閱讀，是這位歷史見證者的再次靠 近。同時，我在試圖把這本回憶錄“暴露”在村里人面前時，也在遭遇著意想不到的各種反應，檢驗著過去與現在的這個村子是否依然“天地無情”。

Director's biography:

Luo Bing was born in 1986 and graduated from the China Fine Arts Academy in 2009. Since 2010, he has been a resident artist at CCD Workstation. His documentaries include Luo Village: Me and Ren Dingqi (2011), Luo Village: Pitiless Earth and Sky (2012) and Luojia Village: Farewell, Luojiang Bridge (2013).

Tentative schedule:

• 14:00  Presentation of Caochangdi Workstation and Folk Memory Project
  Wu Wenguang, Zou Xueping, Luo Bing, Zhang Mengqi

• 14:30  Screening of Luo VIllage: Pitiless Earth and Sky by Luo Bing (2012, 82')
• 16:00  Q&A and panel discussion

For other events organized in Hong Kong, see: http://www.hkindieff.hk/HK_Folk_Memory.html

All interested are welcome!

Seats are limited. Please confirm your attendance.

Audios for previous seminars are available on our website. Please click here for more information.

Place : Room 434, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU