In Dialogue with China: Family, Memory, Resistance, and Change

October 6–27, 2022

Presented in conjunction with the Townsend Center’s In Dialogue with China: Art, Culture, Politics, these films show how three contemporary Chinese filmmakers—Chan Tze Woon, Li Dongmei, and Luo Li—use inventive and subtle techniques to approach themes of family, memory, change, and resistance.

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Mama
Rivers and My Father
Blue Island
Li Wen at East Lake

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Past Films

Mama
- Thursday, October 27 7 PM
Li Dongmei
China, 2020
Winner of the Ingmar Bergman International Debut Award at the Göteborg Film Festival, Mama depicts seven days of life, and death, in a remote rural village in Chongqing province, as remembered by twelve-year-old Xiaoxian.
Li Wen at East Lake
- Friday, October 21 7 PM
Luo Li
Canada, China, 2015
Li’s fascinating documentary/fiction hybrid tours the disappearing shoreline and dwindling waters of the rapidly changing landscape around East Lake in China’s Hubei province in this smart, subtle, and often comic look at contemporary China and its complex relationship to the past.

Luo Li and Michael Nylan in Conversation
Rivers and My Father
- Thursday, October 20 7 PM
Luo Li
Canada, China, 2010
Chinese Canadian filmmaker Li depicts family history with understated reenactments that shift in and out of sync with the stories being told, suggesting the challenges of intergenerational communication and distance with tenderness and humor.

Luo Li and Fang Xu in Conversation
Blue Island
- Thursday, October 6 7 PM
Chan Tze Woon
China, 2022
An elegiac corollary to the fiery documentaries that captured Hong Kong’s recent protest movement and ensuing crackdown, Blue Island grapples honestly with the fact that, despite valiant efforts, Hong Kong as we once knew it is no more.

Introduced by Roy Chan

In Dialogue with China: Family, Memory, Resistance, and Change

October 6–27, 2022

Presented in conjunction with the Townsend Center’s In Dialogue with China: Art, Culture, Politics, these films show how three contemporary Chinese filmmakers are using inventive and subtle techniques to approach themes of family, memory, change, and resistance. Chan Tze Woon’s Blue Island combines interviews with several generations of activists in Hong Kong and China with dramatic depictions of earlier events performed by contemporary protesters, resulting in a multifaceted record of resistance to political oppression. In Rivers and My Father, Chinese Canadian filmmaker Luo Li—who will present his films in person—depicts family history with understated reenactments that shift in and out of sync with the stories being told, suggesting the challenges of intergenerational communication and distance with tenderness and humor. His film Li Wen at East Lake experiments with genre, combining documentary elements with the story of an artist-turned-detective in a case study of the rapid pace of development in China. The series concludes with Li Dongmei’s Mama, which focuses on seven days in the life of a twelve-year-old girl in the verdant mountains of Chongqing province. Drawn from the filmmaker’s own experience of the death of her mother, the film focuses as much on the beautiful yet unforgiving landscape and rhythms of rural family life as on the life-changing event. Providing compelling alternatives to standard talking-head documentaries and big-budget studio fare, these filmmakers offer a nuanced and intimate view of life in China, from the recent past to the current moment.

—Kate MacKay, Associate Film Curator

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Organized by Kate MacKay and Michael Nylan in conjunction with the Townsend Center’s In Dialogue with China: Art, Culture, Politics. With thanks to Weihong Bao; Hans Sluga; Bob Hunter, Icarus Films; Gu Yu, Li Pan, Ru Cao, Yilisoo Films.