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Films & DVDs on China  Text Size Increase Font Size Decrease Font Size
Select a letter or scroll down to view title. A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
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    A

  • All About My SistersAll About My Sisters - Qiong Wang boldly explores her family history and relationships, and how they intersect with the ongoing consequences of China’s one-child policy.

  • The Apology - In this Peabody Award-winning film, former "Comfort Women" forced to serve Japanese troops during WWII tell their harrowing stories.

  • B

  • Before the Flood - The residents of the historic Chinese city of Fengjie clash with officials forcing them to evacuate their homes to make way for the world's largest dam.

  • Before The Flood II - Gong Tan -

    Yan Yu follows BEFORE THE FLOOD with this profile of the residents of Gongtan, a 1700-year-old village soon to be demolished by a hydroelectric dam project.

  • Beijing Besieged by WasteBeijing Besieged by Waste - Wang Jiu-liang travels to more than 500 landfills, documenting Beijing's unholy cycle of consumption.

  • Betelnut - Along a sleepy Hunan riverside, two delinquent boys experience a summer of love and violence.

  • Bird's Nest - Superstar architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron must negotiate between two cultures, two architectural traditions and two political systems to build the new National Stadium for the Olympics in Beijing.

  • Bitter Money - Documents China's rapid economic and social transformation by following the rural workers who leave their Yunnan hometown to move to the city of Huzhou to work in its textile factories.

  • The Black and White Milk CowThe Black and White Milk Cow - A young schoolteacher unknowingly enters a tangled web of politics.

  • Blue Island - This creative documentary shows real-life characters recreating protest movements from Hong Kong's modern history.

  • C

  • China Concerto - An observational essay about public spectacles in contemporary China.

  • The Chinese Lives of Uli Sigg - The entrepreneur, diplomat and art collector Uli Sigg has played a role in the transformation of China's art world since the 1970s.

  • D

  • Dead SoulsDead Souls - Dead Souls documents the testimony of survivors of the hard-labor camp in the Gobi Desert in Gansu, China.

  • A Decent Factory - Can multinationals make an ethical profit? This film finds out as it follows Nokia's new "ethical management consultant" on a trip to a supplier factory in China.

  • Digital Underground in the People's Republic - Six documentary shorts chronicle the changing state of China's independent, and underground, film scene.

  • Disorder - Footage from a dozen amateur videographers becomes a symphony of urban social dysfunction in China.

  • DongDong - The great filmmaker Jia Zhangke travels with acclaimed painter Liu Xiaodong to Thailand where they meet workers in the throes of social turmoil.

  • E

  • The East Wind State Farm - Condemned "Rightists" sentenced "thought reform" share first-person accounts of life in a notorious Chinese labor camp.

  • Electric Signs - Explores the effects of new screen-based advertising sign systems on urban environments and public space.

  • Enter the Clowns - Straight, gay and in-between Beijingers unleash a whirlwind of transsexual mayhem.

  • Er DongEr Dong - A rebellious teenager endures the harsh realities of rural life in northern China, until an uncovered secret from his past changes his life forever.

  • F

  • Fangshan Church - The inner workings of a Christian community in rural China, whose ways of life and worship are threatened by the world around them.

  • Female Directors - When job prospects elude them, two twenty-something art school graduates decide to film each other's lives instead.

  • Floating - Yang is a 30-year-old itinerant singer with a complicated love life, illegally busking in China's big cities, trying to evade the authorities. Which he does, for a while...

  • The Forgotten SpaceThe Forgotten Space - Allan Sekula and Noel Burch investigate maritime trade, the global supply chain and 21st-century capitalism.

  • Fortune Teller - The life of a countryside fortune teller provides a candid and deeply revelatory look at people living on the fringes of Chinese society.

  • Fujian Blue - Two interweaving stories of youth crime and family crisis shed light on illegal emigration and human trafficking in China's Fujian province.

  • G

  • Gai Shanxi and Her Sisters - The story of one woman's brutal ordeal as a "comfort woman" for the Japanese Army during World War II.

  • Ghost TownGhost Town - A remote village in southwest China is haunted by traces of its cultural past while its residents piece together their existence.

  • Girls Always Happy - A feature film which confronts contemporary Chinese life with a brand new perspective, as it portrays a fraught single-mother, daughter relationship in Beijing.

  • I

  • In the Intense Now - A meditation on 1968 political uprisings in France, Czechoslovakia, China, and Brazil.

  • Inside the Red Brick Wall - Hong Kong student protestors who had taken refuge at the Polytechnic University realize that they are trapped by the police.

  • The Iron MinistryThe Iron Ministry - Filmed over three years on what will soon be the world's largest railway network, traces the vast interiors of China on the move.

  • J

  • Journey to the West - Six countries in 10 days! A group of Chinese tourists visits Europe at whirlwind speed.

  • K

  • Karamay - In Karamay, filmmaker Xu Xin helps a community break the silence nearly two decades after a horrible fire killed nearly 300 schoolchildren.

  • L

  • Late Summer - LATE SUMMER captures a centuries-old Beijing theatre in its incarnation as a modern-day transient space.

  • Little MothLittle Moth - When an impoverished country couple adopts a crippled young girl and puts her to work begging on city streets, a battle soon ensues over her fate.

  • Lost Course - Examines an unprecedented experiment in local democracy in the southern Chinese village of Wukan.

  • M

  • Man in Black - WANG Xilin, 86, is one of China’s most important modern classical composers. In this film by Wang Bing, he revisits some of the horrifying events that still live on in his memory.

  • Meishi Street - Ordinary citizens take a stand against the planned destruction of their homes to make way forthe 2008 Beijing Olympics.

  • MothersMothers - A gripping cinema verite documentary that shows how China's one-child policy plays out in the daily lives of women in one Chinese village.

  • Mrs. B., a North Korean Woman - Attempting to escape North Korea, Mrs. B. is sold by smugglers to a Chinese farmer. She becomes a smuggler herself and struggles to reunite with her sons, but the secret service gets involved…

  • My Father's House - The story of an underground church founded by Nigerian missionaries offers a rare glimpse inside an immigrant African community in China.

  • N

  • Nanjing - Till today the history of the 1937 "Rape of Nanking" is a point of contention between China and Japan. How is it seen in each country, and can a shared memory ever be constructed?

  • A New Old PlayA New Old Play -

    One evening in the 1980s, Qiu Fu, a leading clown-role actor in 20th-century Sichuan opera, is killed in an accident and must reluctantly set off for the Ghost City.

  • No. 89 Shimen Road - It's the late 1980s, while Xiaoli's teachers talk about China's recovery from the devastation of the Cultural Revolution, another wave of cultural change is already underway.

  • Nostalgia - Acclaimed filmmaker Shu Haolun explores the culture and history of his Shanghai neighborhood upon its impending destruction.

  • O

  • The Observer - China is doing everything in its power to silence filmmaker Hu Jie, but he remains on his lonely mission to document the country's true history.

  • Of ShadowsOf Shadows - Set in China’s Loess Plateau, Of Shadows captures the liveliness and resilience of a local traveling group of shadow-play artists.

  • Old Dog - A family on the Himalayan plains discovers their dog is worth a fortune, but selling it comes at a terrible price.

  • 1428 - Du Haibin's award-winning documentary of the earthquake that devastated China's Sichuan province in 2008 explores how victims, citizens and government respond to a national tragedy.

  • The Other Half - A brutally frank portrait of the social and environmental problems plaguing contemporary China.

  • Outcry and WhisperOutcry and Whisper - A political manifesto for the resistance of women in Chinese and Hong Kong society, be they workers, artists, intellectuals or militants.

  • Oxhide - Daily life in an impossibly cramped Beijing apartment takes on epic proportions in this, intimate portrait of a working-class Chinese family.

  • Oxhide II - Breaking new ground, Liu Jiayin's follow-up to her masterful debut OXHIDE turns a simple dinner into a profoundly intimate study of family relationships.

  • P

  • Paths of the Soul - An astonishing journey of redemption, faith, and devotion, following a group of villagers who leave their families and homes to make a Buddhist "bowing pilgrimage" to the holy capital of Tibet.

  • Q

  • Queer China, 'Comrade' ChinaQueer China, 'Comrade' China - China's most prolific gay filmmaker presents a comprehensive historical account of the queer movement in modern China.

  • The Questioning - "At 12 o'clock at night, policemen came to our room and started a so-called 'room inspection.' As they began to knock at the door, I turned on a small camcorder. This film is the record of what followed."

  • R

  • Raised from Dust - This narrative sheds light on the unexplored lives of the approximately 40 million Christians in China.

  • S

  • San Yuan Li - Armed with video cameras, twelve artists present a highly stylized portrait of SAN YUAN LI, a traditional village besieged by China's urban sprawl.

  • The Search (Xun Zhao Zhi Mei Geng Deng/'Tsol)The Search (Xun Zhao Zhi Mei Geng Deng/'Tsol) - A film crew travels through Tibet, searching for actors for their adaptation of a classic Buddhist story.

  • Searching for Lin Zhao's Soul - A landmark documentary on the gifted young poet who spoke out at the height of Chairman Mao's rule... and her subsequent fate.

  • Seed Battles - Deep inside a mountain, the Global Seed Vault preserves the seeds of the world. But to whom do they belong?

  • Seeds of Hunger - A global investigation into the evolving nature of food production, and the crisis it may portend.

  • SparkSpark - In this incindiary film, artist Hu Jie shares the testimony of the brave survivors of the political magazine Spark for the first time.

  • Spark & The Observer - Director and artist Hu Jie has been called China’s most important unofficial historian-filmmaker.

  • Street Life - The hidden lives of homeless migrants who survive in the shadows of one of Shanghai's most affluent and historic streets.

  • Struggle - Explores the cruel realities of sweatshop labor and workplace injury in China, and one lawyer's mission to defend worker's rights.

  • Super, Girls!Super, Girls! - Follows ten young women on their quest to become instant superstars on China's biggest television show.

  • T

  • Ta'ang - The daily life of Ta'ang refugees, a Burmese ethnic minority who are caught between a civil war and the Chinese border.

  • Taking Back the Legislature - This day went down in history as the day Hong Kong pro-democracy fighters stormed the legislative council and in the assembly hall delivered the Hong Kong Protest Manifesto for the first time.

  • Tape - Performance artist Li Ning turns his life into art in this epic work of experimental documentary.

  • Though I Am GoneThough I Am Gone - Pioneering artist Hu Jie uncovers the shocking story of girls' school headmistress who was beaten to death by her students during the Cultural Revolution.

  • Three Sisters - Three little sisters live alone in a small village in the high mountains of the Yunnan region. The little girls don't go to school, spending their days working in the fields or wandering in the village.

  • Through the Looking Glass - On a high-land Tibetan pasture, a screening event unfolds quietly. Monks, herdsmen and their families gather by the screen to observe life captured through their own lenses.

  • 'Til Madness Do Us Part - The daily lives and isolation of a group of men locked on one floor of a Chinese city's psychiatric institution.

  • Timber Gang (aka Last Lumberjacks)Timber Gang (aka Last Lumberjacks) - Yu Guangyi's stunning debut explores a grueling winter amongst loggers in Northeast China, as they work with traditional methods through one last, fateful expedition.

  • Torch Troupes - In this vivid portrait of China's musical heritage, Sichuan Opera performers strive to keep a centuries-old artform alive.

  • The Transition Period - With unprecedented access to a Communist Party leader, investigative filmmaker Zhou Hao offers a startlingly candid look inside Chinese politics at the local level.

  • U

  • Umbrella... (San...) - Conceptual and observational but fundamentally a telling look at changes in China today, particularly between rural and urban society.

  • UsingUsing - An unusual relationship develops between a Chinese couple struggling with heroin and a filmmaker chronicling their addiction, in this provocative documenrtary on drug abuse, filmmaking and friendship.

  • W

  • We Are the ... of Communism - The mysterious closing of a Beijing school sends hundreds of migrant children on a desperate struggle to reclaim their right to an education.

  • We the Workers - Follows labor activists as they find common ground with workers and help them negotiate with local officials and factory owners over wages and working conditions.

  • What's for Dinner? - Meat consumption in China is skyrocketing; what does it mean for sustainability, public health, food security, climate change, and animal welfare?

  • When the Bough BreaksWhen the Bough Breaks - On the outskirts of Beijing, two teenage girls struggle to pay for their brother's schooling.

  • The Widowed Witch - Shot in 11 days on borrowed equipment, Cai Chengjie’s deadpan fairy tale takes superstition and the furious chimera of women’s power to conjure an intriguing magic.

  • Winter Vacation - Bored teenagers and disillusioned adults rage at each other and the emptiness of life in frost-bitten northern China.

  • X

  • Xu Bing: Phoenix - Documents the process of creating Xu Bing's monumental bird sculpture through to its installation at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA).

  • Y

  • Youth (Spring)Youth (Spring) - Wang Bing's epic profile of Chinese garment workers.

More Films & DVDs on China
  • Losers and Winners - Two worlds collide when 400 Chinese workers move to Germany for a year and a half to take apart an entire gigantic modern coke factory—and ship it back to China.

  • Sunrise Over Tiananmen Square - An artist's personal exploration of China's recent history from the Cultural Revolution through the 1980s, told through a rich collage of original artwork, archival and family photographs, and animation.

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