A new Frontline World feature looks at independent filmmakers in China, including Jia Zhangke and Du Haibin. From the website:
Later, Jia Zhangke told me he felt he had become a filmmaker by accident, that he should be one of his characters. He was taking a break from editing his latest film, Still Life, which is about a village flooded by the Three Gorges Dam project.
I asked him if his film tried to capture the lives of ordinary Chinese people in a way that journalism cannot.
“People may pay more attention to the news, but when the news is over, when the dam is finished, how will the villagers live?” Jia answered. [Watch the video here]
