Chinese Doco Special in "Senses of Cinema"

Wang Jiuliang's Beijing Besieged by Waste, one of seven independent Chinese documentaries appearing in the "Street Level Visions" program at this year's Melbourne International Film Festival.

As announced in my last post, a program of Chinese documentaries programmed by myself kicks off on 5 August as part of the 2012 Melbourne International Film Festival. "Street Level Visions: Chinese Independent Docos" is a retrospective of seven digital documentaries made over the decade or so, featuring work by Zhao Liang, Hu Jie, Ou Ning, Wang Jiuliang and Zhou Hao.

To coincide with Street Level Visions, the well known Australian film journal Senses of Cinema have run a series of articles in their new issue edited by myself and Adrian Danks focusing on independent Chinese documentaries.

My own article, "Street Level Visions: China's Digital Documentary Movement," provides an overview of the Chinese documentary scene and a discussion of the films comprising the MIFF program.

There is also an interview by me with the acclaimed Chinese documentarian Zhao Liang, whose films Petition and Crime and Punishment are screening at MIFF. I've written about Zhao's work many times here at Screening China, so the interview is a great chance to hear from the man himself.

Also featured is an excellent article on Wang Jiuliang's debut Beijing Besieged by Waste by my friend Christen Cornell, editor of the blog Art Space China, and an incisive reading of Ou Ning's work by the talented UK academic Luke Robinson.

Just a reminder too that both Ou Ning and Wang Jiuliang will be guests of the film festival, and will be appearing at a FREE panel discussion chaired by myself, in the Forum Theatre at 154 Flinders Street, on Tuesday, 14 August, from 5.30-6.15pm. Please come along, hear what Ou and Wang have to say, and to say hi.

Chinese documentarian Ou Ning (Meishi Street) will be a guest of this year's Melbourne International Film Festival.