japanese
New Asian Currents
  • Blossoming in the Wind
  • Chen Lu
  • Last House Standing
  • Try to Remember
  • White Tower
  • President Mir Qanbar
  • Garden
  • The Cheese & The Worms
  • Dear Pyongyang
  • Fort of the Fabrications
  • Yesterday Today Tomorrow
  • Back to the Soil
  • Mad Minutes
  • The Things That We Shouldn’t Do
  • The Sound of Footsteps on the Pavement
  • until when . . .
  • The Island at the End of the World
  • Innocent
  • Diminishing Memories
  • The Pot
  • Chronicle of the Sea, Nan-Fang-Ao
  • Fluiding Stage
  • The Spirit of 8
  • Don’t Forget Me
  • Keep the Change
  • Hammer and Flame

  • Annyong, Sayonara

  • Jurors
  • Pimpaka Towira
  • Murayama Kyoichiro
  • [CHINA]

    Chen Lu


    - CHINA / 2004 / Mandarin (Shaanxi dialect) / Color, B&W / Video / 29 min

    Director: Lin Xin
    Photography, Editing: Lin Xin, Zhang Tao
    Source: Lin Xin

    A panorama film consisting of three parts that stylistically depicts the Chinese pottery town of Chen Lu. Locals both young and old fill the screen with their vibrant commentaries regarding the town in one section that features a collection of monologues, and in another, the alluring beauty of traditional pottery is revealed through its production process. Shots of the guanguanqiang wall made of ceramic jars harmonize with sounds of folk music, accentuating the historic townscape. For a Chinese documentary, the film uniquely engages in the pursuit of visual elegance. The director, better known as a painter with fresh aesthetic sensibilities, makes his directorial debut with this film.



    - [Director’s Statement] As this is my first video work, it took one year to produce with many frustrations and obstacles along the way. I tried to incorporate experimentation, records and literature into one to make it possible for the audience to understand the work via different approaches. Forty-eight out of 100 Chen Lu residents were selected to illustrate, through their soliloquies, the Chen Lu seen from local eyes.


    - Lin Xin

    Lin Xin, a painter, is also an independent producer of experimental films. Born 1960 in Tongchuan, Shaanxi Province, his ancestors can be traced back to Taicang, Jiangsu Province. Several personal painting exhibitions held in Xi’an, the China Art Gallery in Beijing, and other places have been featured in Literary and Art Newspaper and Chinese Paintings. His award-winning work has been exhibited both at home and abroad; and has been featured in various newspapers, books and journals including Fine Arts, People’s Daily, China Daily (English edition), Prose World, and Chinese New Poetry Anthology. He has also published a number of academic papers. In 2000 Lin was featured in Chinese Fine Arts Today—a significant work on contemporary art history compiled by the Central Academy of Fine Arts and Peking University. Theorists called him one of the “key artists full of creativity.” In 2001, Jiangsu Art Journal published The Art Collection for Outstanding Artists of the 21st Century—Lin Xin, and in 2002, he published his poetry anthology Oh! Father—The Black Memory. Chen Lu is his first directorial effort.