Cultural Dimensions of Visual Ethnography: U.S.-China Dialogues

Film Screenings (schedule & synopses)
Complete Conference Program (Download .PDF)

April 8-10, 2010
University of Southern California,
Los Angeles, CA
Sponsored by the Center for Visual Anthropology and the U.S. - China Institute
Organized by Janet Hoskins,
Nancy Lutkehaus, and Gary Seaman

This conference of film screenings and discussions co-funded by the Center for Visual Anthropology, Department of Anthropology and the U.S.-China Institute brings Chinese scholars, visual anthropologists, documentary filmmakers, and new media practitioners together to participate in discussions and presentations about cultural representations. Challenging an older model in which Euro-American filmmakers documented Asian ethnography, this conference looks comparatively at Chinese and American sites of visual ethnography production, and examines the cultural dimensions of filmmaking. Our keynote speaker, Louisa Schein, will frame the critical issues involved in these discussions, and lay the groundwork for the comparative evaluation of strategies for observing, recording, editing, and framing ethnographic documentaries.

How has visual ethnography shifted from a discipline of “first world” filmmakers traveling to film “third world” people to becoming a more complex and dialogical series of exchanges? Moving away from this bi-polar perspective to see the world in more complex and subtle terms, how have the audiences for ethnographic documentaries shifted in recent years? How are ethnographic documentaries influenced by controversies about minority nationalities and ethnicity? What is the relationship between visual ethnography and the commercial videos produced for tourism promotion? What is the role of autobiographical or first person documentaries in defining a cultural perspective? What role do videos play in maintaining transnational connections among dispersed families and communities in China and the US? How do websites and web-based blogs serve to maintain transnational ties?

Film Screening Events (at Leavey Library Auditorium)

Thursday April 8

5:30 pm - Broken Pots Broken Dreams
(Maris Gillette, 30 minutes)
What has China’s transition to a market economy meant for porcelain workers in Jingdezhen, a center of ceramic production for over 500 years? As China has changed from an economic system with worker benefits and protections, to the current system where each worker must fend for him or herself, ceramists must redefine their lives. With captivating footage of porcelain production and the neighborhoods of Jingdezhen, anthropologist and filmmaker Maris Gillette chronicles the experiences of porcelain producers as they make the transition from state workers to private entrepreneurs.

6:20 pm - The Secret Of The Stone: Segmentary Lineage Organization in a North China Village
(Zhifang Song, Gary Seaman, Steven Schindler, 39 minutes)
Located on the North China Plain about 200 miles south of Beijing, Song Family Village is home to about 1,300 people. Some 80% of all villagers are members of a single lineage of the Song surname. The film documents New Year's customs to demonstrate the segmentary structure of the Song family lineage. Ancestor temples provide the focus for collective rituals that express historical growth and subsequent fissioning into lineage segments. Minimal segments (Wufu or mourning groups) are shown as interaction groups focused on the household shrines of senior living agnates. Although the Communist led Cultural Revolution tried to eliminate traditional kin-based institutions, this films shows that segmentary lineages are still a vigorous aspect of life in this village.

Friday April 9

1:00 pm - Tiger Day
(Zhuang Kongshao, 20 minutes)
This film is a demonstration of the "Tiger Day" model in fighting drug abuse and trafficking among the Yi people in Southwest China. The "Tiger Day" model, using anthropological theory as a tool, seeks to understand the socio-cultural origins of drug abuse and trafficking. At the same time, the model attempts to reactivate an ancient lineage rite to fight the abuse of drugs among the Yi people. By mobilizing and activating the lineage organization, religious rites, traditional moral principles, tribal laws, traditional education and other important elements in the cultural heritage of the Yi people, the willpower to overcome human biological addiction is stimulated and fortified. This improves the rate of successful rehabilitation among local drug abusers, and facilitates the fight against HIV/AIDS. Warning: There are some graphic scenes depicting the slaying of animals in this film that viewers may find offensive or disturbing. This film is not suitable for children.

1:30 - Priests of the Buyei People
(Deng Qiyao, 38 minutes)
On the border between Yunnan and Guizhou, there is a Buyei Village called Duoyi village. In this village, people still keep their traditional way of life and folk beliefs. A priest "Mo Gong" is the one who inherits and passes on local knowledge of the Buyei people. He and his family make a living by farming. But when needed, he performs traditional rituals and prays for fellow villagers. His second wife is a nice and hardworking woman, but he still keeps in his mind a deep love for his deceased first wife. 

2:30 pm - Through Chinese Women's Eyes
(Mayfair Yang, 52 minutes)
Through Chinese Women’s Eyes offers an insightful journey into the transformations in the lives of Chinese women over the 20th century. In a fascinating overview, anthropologist/director Mayfair Yang documents the attempts to erase gender differences under Mao, today's changing ideas of femininity, and the crystallization of Chinese feminism at the UN Women's conference in Beijing. As propaganda films and news footage of the 1960's, present day television images, and interview footage from the 1990's mingle in a rich visual history, teachers, karaoke singers, organizers, and others share their lives. This sensitive portrayal of the daily experiences and historical memories of Chinese is essential to an understanding of contemporary feminisms.

4:00 pm - My Village: The Village Documentary Project
(Wu Wenguang, 60 minutes)
Launched in 2005, the China Villager Documentary Project was initiated and implemented by Caochangdi Workstation, an independent art space in Beijing. Ten villagers based in nine different provinces were selected. Most had never touched a camera before. The ten successful candidates each received a video camera and production training at Caochangdi and went back to their home villages for a month to shoot their proposed films, all of which revolved around the theme of self-governance. During the years of 2006, 2007, and 2008, Caochangdi Workstation continued the project independently by organizing four post-production training workshops for selected villager filmmakers. By the end of 2007, four of the ten filmmakers had completed their first feature-length documentary films. In 2008, they worked on their second feature-length documentary films. As part of a larger ongoing project, all the films share the same title: My Village 2006 and My Village 2007.

Saturday April 10

1 pm - Bored in Heaven
(Kenneth Dean, 70 minutes)
The documentary film Bored in Heaven follows the ritual celebrations of the Chinese New Year in rural Putian (Fujian Province, China) where the God of Theater, who finds himself bored in heaven, descends to earth only to find himself exiled to the stage forever, animating everything from large-scale processions and Taoist rituals to spirit possessions and ritual opera. It is based on several decades of fieldwork by Kenneth Dean, who has done hundreds of interviews with Taoist practitioners and their clients in villages and towns, the collection of manuscripts and oral histories, and observations of community rituals and local cults. The first-hand information is supplemented by significant documentation: not only the Taoist canon, but also temple gazetteers, epigraphy, liturgical manuscripts, and temple records.

2:45 pm - Bing Ai
(Feng Yan, 120 minutes)
Zhang Bing Ai belongs to one of the 1.13 million migrants who would be driven out of their own land due to the construction of the Three Gorges Dam project. The documentary named after her gives us a chance to see how she, a lonely and helpless woman from the countryside, has fought against this process. Her only reason for refusing to leave is her reluctance to abandon her land. Her refusal to leave is for very practical reasons, yet the audience is moved by her humility and simplicity when at one point in the film Bing Ai speaks about her feelings towards the land while taking a break from her work, where she says "the earth can grow everything". The tradition of "Standing with the people who are struggling" from Japanese documentaries filmed in the 1960s and 1970s has received continuity in this film, while the roots of this work are still deep in the reality and the earth of China.

4:45 pm - A Dai Village's New Year
(Yang Hui, 44 minutes)
Directed by Professor Yang Hui of Yunnan University, this film documents ceremonies, and rituals during the New Year's Day in a Dai Village in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, China. These rituals and ceremonies are not only performed as part of the New Year's celebration for the local Dai people, they are used more as an attraction to tourists who are seeking to view the real Dai style of life. The documentary explores the relation between tradition rituals and the tourist industry.

5:45 pm - Han Xin's Revenge, a Daoist Mystery
(Patrice Fava, Zhuang Kongshao, 90 minutes)
"Han Xin's Revenge", depicts the largest Daoist ritual held in Hunan Province. It narrates the story of the great general of the early empire Han Xin. For five years he fought heroically for Liu Bang, later to become the Emperor Gaozu, founder of the Han Dynasty, and in finally defeating Xiang Yu, the powerful hegemon of Chu, ensured Liu's ascendancy. But the emperor, jealous of Han Xin's popularity and charisma, had him assassinated under the pretext that he was plotting against the throne. At his death, it is said, the sky turned black and his spirit was swept up into the beyond. His apotheosis is regarded as one of the great Daoist Mysteries of the Hunan region. The history of his revenge against the emperor first became a local epic and then a liturgical drama, which the Daoists of today continue to stage. Warning: There are some graphic scenes depicting the slaying of animals in this film that viewers may find offensive or disturbing. This film is not suitable for children.