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.

Street Level Visions: Chinese Independent Docos at the Melbourne International Film Festival

Zhao Liang's Petition, one of seven titles screening at this year's Melbourne International Film Festival as part of "Street Level Visions: Chinese Independent Docos," curated by Dan Edwards.

I’m very happy to announce that “Street Level Visions,” a program of independent Chinese documentaries curated by myself, will be screening next month as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival.

The program is a small retrospective of independent works produced in China over the past decade or so, many of which I’ve written about here at Screening China. As well as classics such as Zhao Liang’s Petition (2009) and Hu Jie’s Searching for Lin Zhao’s Soul, the selection includes Wang Jiuliang’s debut from last year, Beijing Besieged by Waste.

Directors Ou Ning and Wang Jiuliang will be in Melbourne as guests of the festival.

Here’s the full program – all screenings at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) on Federation Square unless otherwise indicated: