Over the past 25 years, many Chinese independent filmmakers have made documentaries about the history of the Mao era. Using personal memories as primary materials, they are shedding light on times and topics that are vaguely, inaccurately or insufficiently narrated in the official history. The following table is an attempt to list these independent documentaries and identify the historical periods they mainly address. Hyperlinks to excerpts, trailers or full versions of these films are provided when available.
Although this list does not claim exhaustivity, it is the first attempt to systematically document what has emerged as a specific sub-genre of independent film in China. The selected works all address past experiences of the protagonists, shedding light on the daily life during the Mao era. However, some of the historical content of these films extends well beyond this period, for instance by relating events preceding the founding of the PRC with the period in scrutiny ; other times, the past is revisited in order to explain the historical causes of contemporary issues.
Judith Pernin
| Filmmaker | Original title | International title | Year | Min. | Description | Hyperlinks | Historical period |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SWYC (The Structure, Wave,Youth, Cinema Experimental Group) 結構、浪潮、青年、電影實驗小組 | Wo Biye le 我畢業了 | I Graduated! | 1992 | 64 | A collection of interviews of student gathered right after the Tiananmen movement. | Tiananmen movement | |
| Wu Wenguang 吳文光 | 1966 nian, Wo de Hongweibing Shidai 1966 年, 我的紅衛兵時代 | 1966, My Time As A Red Guard | 1992 | 165 | 5 former Red guards from diverse backgrounds tell Wu Wenguang about their youth. They share their memories and personal archives, as well as their current view on the movement. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj_zlFuYb6s | Cultural Revolution |
| Ai Xiaoming 艾曉明, Hu Jie 胡杰 | Wei Geming Huahua 為革命畫畫 | Painting For The Revolution | 2005 | 56 | Hu Jie and Ai Xiaoming go to Hu County in Shaanxi province to interview painters, critics and professors on the transformation of folk art into political art around 1958. | Great Leap Forward, Cultural revolution | |
| Hu Jie 胡杰 | Xunzhao Lin Zhao De Linghun 尋找林昭的靈魂 | Looking For Lin Zhao’s Soul | 2005 | 90 | An investigation on Lin Zhao, a young communist writer who took part in the Hundred Flower movement and was later punished during the anti-rightist campaign. She spent many years in prison where she kept writing critical texts and poems using her own blood, and was killed by a firing squad in 1968. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLoGhCjFhbk | Anti-rightist movement; Cultural revolution |
| Shu Haolun 舒浩侖 | Xiangchou 鄉愁 | Nostalgia | 2005 | 70 | Dazhongli, a Shanghai traditional neighbourhood is also where filmmaker Shu Haolun grew up. Facing imminent urbanisation plans, the area is likely to change. This prompted the filmmaker to capture Dazhongli's unique atmosphere and record the memories of some of the oldest inhabitants. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih9ghZhUN5U | |
| Zhang Ke 張珂 | Qingchun muyuan 青春墓園 | Youth Cemetery | 2005 | 23 | Zhang Ke films a Chongqing cemetery where numerous young people were buried during the Cultural Revolution. | Cultural Revolution | |
| Zhong Jian 種鍵 | Try to remember? | 2005 | 60 | Filmmaker Zhong Jian takes his mother Liu Zhi on a trip back to the village where she spent her chilhood during the cultural revolution. | Cultural revolution; Down to the Countryside movement | ||
| Lin Xin 林鑫 | San Li Dong 三里洞 | San Li Dong | 2006 | 172 | Filmmaker Lin Xin is the son of Shanghai workers who decided to relocate into the Chinese heartland to take part in major development projects iin the 1950s. He films the grim environment of the San Li Dong charcoal mine and interviews the remaining workers. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfzBn8Esmtc | Great Leap forward |
| Hu Jie 胡杰, Ai Xiaoming 艾曉明 | Hongse Meishu 紅色美術 | Red Art | 2007 | 70 | A companion to Painting for the Revolution, Red art explores the art of propaganda poster during the Cultural revolution, and features interviews with major artists, critics, and former Red guards. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9Y-zkroPGk | Cultural revolution |
| Wang Bing 王兵 | He Fengming 和鳳鳴 | Fengming, A Chinese Memoir | 2007 | 186 | In this filmic memoir, former Rightist He Fengming remembers her struggles during the various political campaigns implemented after 1949, and describes her lengthy stay in a labor camp. | http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjQ4NjU1ODg0.html | Hundred Flowers; Anti-rightist movement |
| Xu Xing 徐星 | Wo de Wenge biannianshi 我的文革编年史 | A Chronical of my Cultural Revolution | 2007 | 80 | A film about the impact of the Cultural revolution on the population of rural Dongbei. | Cultural Revolution | |
| Zhang Min 張民 | Wo zhe yi beizi 我這一輩子 | My Whole Life | 2007 | 100 | Zhang Min interviews two retired village cadres from Inner Mongolia. They recall their past and comment on their official job. | http://www.yunfest.org/yunfest09/special/08.htm | Land reform |
| Huang Wenhai 黃文海 | Women 我們 | We | 2008 | 102 | We focuses on various dissenting voices within China, and bridges the gap between today's injustices and their causes in the past. | ||
| Zhang Dali 張大力 | Xunzhao 79 Yue Zhan Xiaoshi De Lao Bing / Wo De 1979 尋找79越戰消逝的老兵/ 我的1979 | Looking For The Lost Veterans Of 1979 / My 1979 | 2008 | 180 | Zhang Dali explores the memorial dedicated to Vietnem war soldiers in Guangxi province and tries to find people willing to talk about this forgotten episode of Chinese history. | Vietnam war | |
| Hu Jie 胡杰 | Guoying dong feng nongchang 國營東風農場 | The East Wind State Farm | 2009 | 104 | After being labelled Rightists, 200 people from Yunnan province ended up in the The "East Wind State Farm" where they spent most of the next 20 years. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgUuyo32Bi8 | Anti-rightist movement |
| Peng Xiaolian 彭小蓮, Louisa Wei 魏時煜 | Hong Ri Fengbao 紅日風暴 | Storm Under The Sun | 2009 | 137 | Filmmakers Peng Xiaolian and Louisa Wei revisit the persecution of intellectuals and writers during the Mao era, focusing on the Hu Feng case. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1R3I8HxqJE&noredirect=1 | May 4th movement, Anti-Hu Feng campaign, Cultural Revolution |
| Zhang Ming 章明 | Liu shi 60 | 60 | 2009 | 184 | Wang Kang, a Chongqing intellectual born in 1949, remembers his past and gives his personal version of the history of the PRC. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDMBMLRWnfI&list=PL1xmVbigZck2vTF2mmoNhByuIzj6l6Qmf&index=5 | |
| Xu Xin 徐辛 | Kelamayi 克拉瑪依 | Karamay | 2010 | 356 | An in-depth investigation of the death of young students trapped in a fire in an oil town in Xinjiang, 1994. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkO0oobweGA | |
| Gu Tao 顾桃, Zhou Yu 周宇 | Shen Yi 神翳 | The Eclipse of the Gods / The Opaque God | 2011 | 92 | Guan Kouni is a shaman from the Eluochun minority born in 1935. She tell us about her religious practice and her life as the group gradually abandoned shamanism and nomadism in the 1950s. | Great Leap Forward | |
| Hu Jie 胡杰 | Wo de muqin Wang Peiying 我的母親王佩英 | My Mother Wang Peiying | 2011 | 70 | Zhang Kexin, daughter of "counter-revolutionnary" Wang Peiying, retraces her mother's life through interviews and archival documents. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr3TJKk2wHs | Great Leap Forward, Cultural revolution |
| Ma Zhandong 馬占东 | Haishiwan 海石湾 | Hai shi wan | 2011 | 52 | The Third Front movement described by sons of wokers who relocated in Gansu. | Third Front movement | |
| Qiu Jiongjiong 邱炯炯 | Xuantang xianhua lu 萱堂閑話錄 | My Mother's Rhapsody | 2011 | 106 | Qiu Jiongjiong's grandmother recalls her past in a very personal and vivid way. | ||
| Wang Yunlong 王雲龍 | Zhanyou 戰友 | Comrades in arms | 2011 | 90 | In 2009, retired members of the Kunming National defense art group gather together. | ||
| Wang Yunlong 王雲龍, Han Yi 韓翊 | Huan Bu Qinfu yi meili 還卜琴父以美麗 | To Justify Bu Qinfu | 2011 | 92 | This film revisits the case of Bu Qinfu, an actress who criticised the government during the Cultural revolution. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ponVnP1Y-O0 | Cultural Revolution |
| Xu Tong 徐童 | Lao Tang tou 老唐頭 | Shattered | 2011 | 100 | In front of Xu Tong's camera, a retired railroad worker called Tang Xixin recalls his life. | ||
| Gui Shuzhong 鬼叔中 | Luopan jing 羅盤經 | To Relive | 2012 | 109 | This film focuses on the life of a Hakka Fengshui master who was accused of commiting counter-revolutionary crimes during the Cultural Revolution. | Cultural Revolution | |
| Liu Wei 劉偉 | Xisheng 犧牲 | The Sacrifice | 2012 | 62 | Memories of the Cultural revolution in Chongqing. | Cultural Revolution | |
| Shen Jie 沈潔 | Gui jie 鬼節 | Ghost festival | 2012 | 45 | Shen Jie's mother gives a vivid account of her life as a mother of 8 in the early days of the PRC, and during the famine. | Great Famine | |
| Xie Yihui 謝貽卉 | Youpai Li Shengzhao de ji'e baogao 右派李盛照的飢餓報告 | Rightist Li Shengzhao's hunger report | 2012 | 47 | Witnessing mass famine in 1961 in Sichuan, Li Shengzhao wrote a "report on hunger", which granted him the title of counter-revolutionnary and 18 years of jail. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWyRPQSPp8w | Great Famine, Anti-rightist movement, Great Leap Forward |
| Xu Xin 徐辛 | Daolu 道路 | Pathway | 2012 | 113 | Pathway focuses on the memories of an army veteran who took part in anti-Japanese battles and and fought in the Liberation war, only to be labelled counter revolutionary in the 1950s. | ||
| Han Song 韩松 | Beida Wuyijiu 北大五一九 | Beida Wuyijiu | 2013 | 173 | This film investigates the Hundred flowers movement in Peking University and its aftermath: the labelling of 715 students as Rightists. | Hundred Flowers; Anti-rightist movement | |
| Hu Jie 胡杰 | Xinghuo 星火 | Spark | 2013 | 100 | In Spark, Hu Jie investigates an underground magazine published in 1961 by a group of students in Lanzhou who were trying to reveal the extent of the Great famine. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ody_7e1nTSY | Great Famine, Anti-rightist movement, Great Leap Forward |
| Hu Jie 胡杰 | Gelagu zhi shu 格拉古之書 | The Book of Gelagu | 2013 | 38 | This film focuses on Zhang Xianchi, a former Rightist who wrote an autobiography on his lengthy stay in Sichuan labour camps. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-dFLtgQsto | Anti-rightist movement |
| Mao Chenyu 毛晨雨 | Yongyou, xin Zhongguo nongmin zhanzheng: xiucixue de zhengyi 擁有，新中國農民戰爭：修辭學的正義 | I Have What? Chinese Peasant War: The Rhetoric to Justice | 2013 | 103 | Essay film on rural politics in China under Mao. | Land Reform, Anti-rightist movement, Cultural revolution; Down to the Countryside movement | |
| Meng Xiaowei 孟小為 | Xiongyali zhaoxiangji 匈牙利照相機 | The Camera of Socialist Country | 2013 | 56 | A 1950s Hungarian family camera gives an aging mother and her filmmaker son the occasion to revisit the past. | Land Reform, Anti-rightist movement, Cultural revolution | |
| Wang Yunlong 王雲龍 | Daiyanren 代言人 | The Spokesman | 2013 | 69 | Filmmaker Wang Yunlong was one of the first to reveal the story of Duan Peidong, a Yunnan peasant and former prisoner turned self-taught local historian. Many years after shooting a TV documentary about him, the filmmaker visits him once again only to witness that his newly gained celebrity has left him with a tendency to rewrite history for his own benefit. | ||
| Xie Yihui 謝貽卉 | Dabao xiao laojiao 大堡小勞教 | Juvenile Laborers Confined in Dabao | 2013 | 104 | Xie Yihui follows former journalist Zeng Boyan to a Reeducation Through Labor camp in Sichuan, to disclose the treatment of minors during the Gret Leap forward. | http://m.liveleak.com/view?i=cb0_1367457012&selected_view_mode=mobile | Great Famine, Anti-rightist movement, Great Leap Forward |
| Xu Xing 徐星 | Zuixing zhaiyao 罪行摘要 | Zuixing zhaiyao | 2013 | 120 | After stumbing on more than twenty files of Zhejiang counter-revolutionary "criminals" judged and sentenced to jail during the Cultural revolution, Xu Xing decides to set out and look for these people in their home province. | Cultural Revolution | |
| Saipulla Mutallip | Heishan: Yaoyuan de cunzhuang 黑山︰遙遠的村莊 | Qarangghu Tagh: The Villages Afar | 2014 | 90 | A rare exploration of the local history of a remote village in Southern Xinjiang. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKw5_iK_uZA | |
| Zhu Rikun | Dang'an 檔案 | The Dossier | 2014 | 128 | Tibetan writer Tsering Woeser reads her official file and recalls her youth, retracing her evolution from an obedient Red student to a committed writer. | ||
| Cao Diao 曹雕 | He Zhang Laoshi zuo pengyou 和張老師做朋友 | Making friends with Mr. Zhang | 2015 | 65 | For Mr. Zhang, the Mao era remains a unparalleled time of achievements and he dedicates his life and free time to celebrate the late leader. | ||
| Gao Zipeng 高子鹏, Wu Meng 吴梦 | Shanghai Qingnian 上海青年 | Shanghai Youth | 2015 | 480 | An in-depth exploration of the life and times of Shanghai Educated Youth, especially those who were sent to Xinjiang, unveiling their past and current struggles. | Down to the countryside movement | |
