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A "Chinese" father reflects on the changing relationship of China and US during his trip to Beijing to retrieve his 3-year-old "American" daughter who has been stranded because of the recent "decoupling" of the two countries. Born in China and living in the American Midwest, filmmaker Yinan Wang attempts to unpack his own experience of how a transnational migrant family deals with the distress caused by identity, nationalism, and geopolitics.

A lively community of Christians inhabit Fangshan, a remote rural town in Jiangsu Province. At the start of the millennium, a church was built there with support of local inhabitants' relatives from Taiwan. On Sundays, up to 900 people gather to worship, while spending most of their days maintaining a modest living as farmers. Their faith governs how they handle family conflicts, illnesses and other difficulties. Still, they must contend with constraining forces in their community, from ancient folk religious practices to laws forbidding evangelism.

The 2008 earthquake in China utterly destroyed not only physical structures but also human lives in mountain cities like Beichuan. Through the gracefully interwoven stories of three survivors from the town, Fallen City documents the struggle to rebuild amidst ruin.

Railroad of Hope consists of interviews and footage collected over three days by Ning Ying of migrant agricultural workers traveling from Sichuan in China's interior, to the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China's northwest frontier.[1] Through informal interviews aboard the cramped rail cars, Ning Ying explores the hopes and dreams of the workers, many of whom have never left their homes before.

In late August 2008, following the 100th day of the Sichuan Earthquake, rescue teams began to withdraw and the media ceased to report on the disasters at the schools. Chengdu environmentalist Tan Zuoren and local volunteers were still rushing from one collapsed school to the next, trying to find out why they had collapsed. Autumn went and winter came, Tan Zuoren and Xie Yihui had visited ten counties and cities and over eighty towns and townships in the main disaster region, covering a distance of about 3,000km. They managed to release an investigate report on the internet before the 1st anniversary of the May 12 Earthquake. This is the first investigative report conducted by independent citizens on the collapsed schools.

The Chinese government allows its citizens to file official complaints against their local governments, but at the same time unofficially prevents them from doing so. This documentary is the result of the director's random encounter with an old classmate whose job is to convince people not to file their complaints. In long monologues by the director's acquaintance, which take up most of this critical portrait of modern China, we hear a sense of shame at his job, but also helpless resignation.

Xiaoxing hasn't seen his uncle for years, since he left for Argentina. When he finally visits him again, the man has changed completely and his life is in shambles. So Xiaoxing and his mother offer him a trip to Perito Moreno, the world's biggest glacier.

A new phenomenon of authentic Chinese rap has taken the internet by storm. But behind the unprecedented gains in popularity, there is a struggle for freedom of speech. Rappers are trying to figure out what they still can and cannot do after new censorship is announced.

A small rural township called Red White was seriously devastated by the May 12th Earthquake in China 2008. A 62-year-old Taoist survived even though his temple was largely torn by the disaster. This documentary tells the story of how the Taoist practices the widely believed Chinese traditional religion and the local people’s daily life during the township’s post-quake reconstruction.

Since childhood, Song Jiale has dreamed of becoming a girl and aligning her body with her identity. Leaving her village at 14, she worked in cities but couldn’t escape her gender dysphoria. For three years, she traveled between Shanghai and home, gathering documents and seeking her family’s acceptance for surgery. Rejected by her father and relatives, she decided to proceed on her own. In the hospital, she found solidarity among other transgender people, sharing care and hope through their transformations. But upon returning home, she faced rejection and hostility, leaving her to confront new uncertainties about her future.

Who knew that Communism could be so funny? This madcap documentary reexamines the Cultural Revolution and restores the once bright reputation of Mao Zedong. "The Passion of the Mao" begins by correcting misconceptions about Mao's early years. Unlike the tyrants with whom he is usually compared, Mao was a successful scholar and businessman before he became a rabble-rouser.

Documentary about “Red Hair Emperor” Gu Donglin, a man became famous by dancing in the live-streaming channel.

Loan sharks and female nightclub workers.

This film delves into the secretive realm of a Chinese juvenile reform school, revealing its strict regulations and severe penalties. Despite the harsh environment, it offers a compassionate portrayal of troubled teens, showing how love and friendship can endure. At Peach Reform School, discipline is enforced through extreme measures, shaping and challenging the humanity of its students.

A Self-Portrait is the story of the art teacher Qiu Sha, told in photos and the words of Qiu Sha, about his youth, the changes in his family and in society. Director He Yi: 'What I remember now is the material that I came to mind of a man who has lived through the different eras in China. From all this material I not only read the history of a man and his family, I also learned something about the demands placed on life in a society over several decades.

Zhang Hong is an eternal hustler coming from a poor family in China and who is blind. While his spouse aspires to a peaceful life he still want to "make it". Working now as a blind masseur, the 45-year-old wants to climb Mount Everest as he hopes to finally turn his luck around. Physical challenges, financial constraints, and concerns from his family are dilemmas on the road to his dream.

Documentary on the Nanjing Massacre.

The story of an encounter between a member of the 50-cent army (web commentator) and a netizen, in an attempt to resolve an online conflict.

More than 30 years ago, when the nuclear disastee occurred in Chernobyl, Maria was over 50. Her village was within the 30 kilometres restricted area. She and her neighbors were sent far away. Missing her hometown, Maria and her several sisters returned to the village secretly and lived a self-sufficient life.

A documentary film about an underground rock concert in Xiangshan, Beijing, 2002. The concert lasts for three days and three nights. This documentary goes "underground" to uncover an independent punk/rock scene in China. The scene is alive and well, attracting bands and spectators from around the country to Beijing, the informal headquarters of the movement. Zhang tells the story of some of her friends who face the challenges of making underground music in a culture that has been recently flooded with every style of global sounds.

For six years the film follows 3 young Chinese from different social levels, different regions and different mindsets into their adult lives.

Documentary about a man called Xiaolizi.

The film takes place against the backdrop of elderly care homes, kindergartens, the 219 Park, and various cityscapes. It portrays the urban ruins and inner turmoil caused by economic decline, and depicts the social contradictions arising from recession and the lingering effects of post-socialism, capturing the impact on the lives and values of people in the Northeast region of China.

Hu County, in suburban Xi’an, is famous for its peasant paintings, produced in 1958 during the Great Leap Forward. It became particularly famous during the Cultural Revolution, when these works were hailed as model paintings. In 2005, the directors visited the county and interviewed both the painters and their teachers. Comparing different political languages and artistic imaginings across the ages, the film draws on diverse sources: old documentary film clips, new propaganda paintings, Beijing Opera in the local “Qin” accent, and traces of the old amongst the new. All these elements are engaged to help us better understand the painters and the phenomenon of propaganda paintings

A microcosm of China past and present flows through Xu Tong’s intimate docu “Shattered,” in which the maverick indie filmmaker continues to refine his techniques and concerns shown in his previous “Wheat Harvest” and “Fortune Teller.”

Before the Flood is a study of the final weeks of a dying city, as thousand-year-old Fengjie on the Yangtze River is reduced to rubble and its inhabitants uprooted to make way for the new Three Gorges Dam that will flood the entire valley.

GAI SHANXI AND HER SISTERS tells the story of one woman's brutal ordeal as a "comfort woman" for the Japanese Army during World War II. Hou Dong-E, known as "Gai Shanxi," the fairest woman in China's Shanxi province, was one of the many women abducted from their villages to be sexually enslaved by Japanese soldiers stationed nearby. Fifty years later, she joined other women throughout Asia to seek justice and reparations, but she died before her demands were answered.

A short essay on the hidden realities beneath the surface of Shanghai.

For Chinese parents, finding out that their kid is gay usually presents a major tragedy, with the big majority utterly unable to accept the homosexuality of their son or daughter. However, during recent years a fresh rainbow wind has been blowing over the Chinese mainland: a pioneer generation of Chinese parents has been stepping up and speaking out on their love for their gay kids. This documentary features 6 mothers from all over China, who talk openly and freely about their experiences with their homosexual children. With their love, they are giving a whole new definition to Chinese-style family bonds.

A folk song echoed on the Shandong Plain. This is the song of Luo Xiaojia, a Yunnan Yi girl who was trafficked to the Shandong Plain at the age of 17, and now she has lived in rural Shandong for seven years. After coming to Shandong, she was forced to marry a young farmer and received a marriage certificate. The film documents her family life in the unfamiliar Shandong countryside, her thoughts about her hometown and her views on destiny. Luo Xiaojia's tenth year in Shandong Province, she finally won the right to go home. After a journey of 4,000 kilometers, she returned to her hometown of Yunnan and saw her mother who she missed day and night. But she was caught in a contradiction. Finally, she asked her mother to sing a lot of folk songs for her, and she returned to Shandong with those sad folk songs.

Returning home, a queer filmmaker finds their mother awakened to a new understanding beyond patriarchy, as the two reconcile amidst a past shaped by unspoken pain.

Liu Zeyuan is a farmer on the edge of the desert at the junction of Inner Mongolia and Ningxia. He grows food and raises camels, and his family's annual income is 5,000 yuan. Liu Picheng is a fisherman on Jingwa Island, part of the isolated Liaodong Peninsula; he is unwilling to attract attention and becomes hostile to the camera. The living environment and conditions of these two families are different, but the directors try to find some common ground while expressing the two respective unique lifestyles. In fact, these lives are firmly swayed by nature: sand storms can destroy everything, just as the ocean tide can destroy everything, and for the two protagonists, the difficult grasp of the future and their children also brings them the same loneliness. Filmed in 1989, Sand and Sea received the Grand Prix award from the 1991 Asian Broadcasting and Television Union.

Some memories from a painter.

The first part of Wu Wenguang's Autobiography film series.

Jin scowls into the camera when her sister – the filmmaker – asks about her earliest memories. No wonder: these memories are anything but pleasant. Jin was born in the 1990s, during China’s one-child policy. It was normal then for unborn girls to be aborted – right up to the last month of a pregnancy, because boys were preferred. Living babies were also ruthlessly dumped in the garbage, or in the woods. Jin survived for a week in a box on the streets.

A CCTV-commissioned, 8-part series shot between 1988 and 1990, but barred from being released after the events of June 4th. A production of the Structure, Wave, Youth, Cinema (SWYC) Experimental Group, an informal collective of young filmmakers founded in the summer of 1989 and devoted to the production of documentaries, that includes: this series' two directors, Shi Jian and Chen Jue, as well as Beijing TV's Wang Zijun, and this series' screenwriter, Kuang Yang (under the name Guang Yi). Tiananmen documents various aspects of life surrounding the Square: survivors of the imperial era, street performers, fledgling entrepreneurs, fashion school students, foreigners marrying Chinese nationals, and so forth. Each episode starts with a close-up of a giant portrait of Mao hung over the Square, and proceeds as a hybrid of archival footage, direct cinema, and cinema verité, weaving a permanent dialectic between the present and the past, daily life and history.

In order to participate in "International Day Against Violence to Women," in 2003, Eve Ensler pioneering feminist drama was adapted by teachers and students of the Sun Yat-sen University Gender Education Forum in Mainland China, adding an artistic interpretation of the gendered experiences of Chinese women. It was performed at the Guangdong Museum of Art. But in a country that talks publicly about sex changes, teachers and students encountered responses they could not have imagined. This film records what happened to these teachers and students following the performance of The Vagina Monologues.

Weaving together footage filmed and broadcast by little-known Chinese live-streaming anchors, who struggle with real-life face-to-face social interaction because of their identity, disability and social-economic status, this cinematic collage explores how individuals satisfy their cravings for human connection through virtual togetherness, and how these virtual relationships challenge standard definitions of companionship.

Traversing 700,000 square kilometers over 700 days, the filmmakers bring the stories of five people who crisscross the Yellow River to perform their art. At the center of the web is Su Yang, a contemporary artist and musician and his exchange with traditional practitioners of Qin Opera, Shadow Puppetry, Hua’er, and Shaanbei Storytelling.​

A documentary following the filmmaker, Shu Qiao, who went back to his hometown of Shuangjing, a rural village in Hunan Province. He interviewed the elders in his village who lived through the Great Famine during 1959-1961. His main purpose was to gather the names of those who suffered and died during the famine and to ask the village to donate money for erecting a monument in their name

An experimental documentary film produced and directed in 2014. The film’s title also translates literally into Eight Trigrams in Chinese. In the Asian culture, Eight Trigrams refer to the fundamental principles of reality, seen as a range of eight interrelated concepts. However, in contemporary China, when people talk about Eight Trigrams, they mostly refer to someone gossiping. The film is about a steel mill worker listening to gossips and her fantasies. The Director wanted to express the view that all things in the world are connected. Truth may be an illusion. Fiction could be real too.

A short film by Deming Chen.

One of Hu Jie's 'Farmers Working in the City' films. The city is developing rapidly, with tall buildings and highways. Behind this bustling city, there is such a group of people. They come from the countryside. Maybe they are not dressed well, or they have only finished elementary school, but they work hard with their own work. The piece of prosperity pays its youth and sweat. (Shot between 1997 and 1998.)

The documentary film Chinafrika.mobile is tracking the life cycle of a mobile phone. From its birth in the mines in the Kolwezi, DR Congo, to its manufacturing in Chinese factories in the Pearl River Delta to its use and death in the markets and recycling dumps in Lagos, Nigeria, the mobile phone camera sends images of its global journey to the viewer's mobile phone display.

Wang Wo’s experimental documentary takes the direct cinema approach to the realm of avantgardism, immersing the viewer in a non-narrative, highly sensory experience of urban China in its visual and aural splendor.

Produced and broadcast by China Media Group, the series invites French director Jacques Malaterre to film at a boarding school in Nyingchi City in Xizang. It authentically depicts how the boarding school positively impacts students’ development. Through a foreign director’s perspective, it reflects local parents’ recognition of the boarding school model and demonstrates the necessity of such education in Xizang, achieving wide influence.

Using black-and-white images ranging from African statues to contemporary film posters and political meetings, Chihying considers aesthetic dynamics between the West, China and Africa. How did so many African artefacts end up in European museums? And what if this Western power of selection were replaced by Chinese control?

Zhou Xiaoting tried to use film as a love letter to say goodbye to her mother, while Han Xia wanted to prove her perfectionism. Each person has their own intentions and meaning when making a film, but they all face different challenges on their journey to becoming a director.

Blending Milk and Water: Sex in the New World is a cross-cultural, intergenerational, documentary about the diverse views of sex from twenty-two people. The recollections, fears and opinions of young people, professionals, healthworkers, educators, artists, community activists, and people living with AIDS are mixed.

In China’s Northeast, there is the Fuzhou Folk Music, a country music played with suona, big suona, double pipe, Zheng and percussion instruments. Song Xiping, a suona professor, is one of the main inheritors of this music.

Photographer Wang Jiu-liang travels to more than 500 landfills, fearlessly documenting Beijing's unholy cycle of consumption through poignant observational visits with the scavengers who live and work in the dumps. While China's economic ascent commands global attention, less light has been shed upon the monumental problem of waste spawned by a burgeoning population, booming industry, and insatiable urban growth. Award-winning photographer Wang Jiuliang focuses his lens upon the grim spectacle of waste, excrement, detritus, and rubble unceremoniously piled upon the land surrounding the China's Olympic city, capital, and megalopolis, Beijing.

Ostensibly a documentary or a music video chronicling influential post-punk Chinese group P.K. 14’s first national tour, Li Hongqi’s latest provocation becomes a rumination on existential ennui that takes place on endless highways as band members sit in their tour bus and anonymous hotels.