David Bandurski, of China Media Project, wears another hat as documentary film producer, and his new film Ghost Town was recently shown at the New York Film Festival. dGenerate Films interviewed him about the film and his involvement with it. Listen to the full interview here:

DGF: Does the film sort of emblematize what we could call a Chinese documentary filmmaking aesthetic?  From what you’ve seen, based on your own observations, do you think we could say there’s such a thing as a dominant Chinese aesthetic towards documentary filmmaking?  Is it something that’s very distinguishable from documentaries that you see in the US or elsewhere?

DB: It’s really tough to define and its sort of dangerous.  In Lu Xinyu’s book she’s talking about these films as a movement and I always find myself using the word “movement” and I want to slap my own hand and say “be careful.” Because if you talk to the directors they may see a difference between their films and that of another. Dayong he may feel a sense of camaraderie and the sense of being a part of the same scene. There’s a filmmaker named Zhou Hao. You may be familiar with him he made film called Using that was out this year about drug addicts in Guangzhou.  But their films are so different. If you try to boil it down to an aesthetic I think it’s really difficult.

So aesthetically it’s a much more difficult thing to put your finger on, but what I always go back to, and again this isn’t a focus that the directors themselves necessarily have, but what I always go back to are the institutional issues in China with making a film.  These are independent films in China not because of their low budget, or that they’re made outside a dominant production culture. They’re independent, really because they’re illegal, technically. They don’t go through the licensing process, the don’t ask the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, ‘Can we?’ They don’t give them a script and say, “Approve this and we’ll go and film it.” They’re not renegades in that sense, they’re not out to make an explicit political point or go up against the authorities.  But they’re making use of this strange gray space that exists outside this regulatory and censorship environment.  That is the real fundamental for them as independent filmmakers.

Watch a trailer of Ghost Town.