Bing’ai
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Country/Region:
Mainland China
Release Year: 2007
Release Year: 2007
Story:
With the completion of the Three Gorges Dam, now under construction, 1.13 million people along the Yangtze River will have been dislocated. The majority of them are farmers. BINGAI features one woman farmer who refuses to move away from her village. The audience will follow her seven-year struggle with officials who pressure her to relocate, while a strong devotion to her land compels her to remain in the place she calls home.
With the completion of the Three Gorges Dam, now under construction, 1.13 million people along the Yangtze River will have been dislocated. The majority of them are farmers. BINGAI features one woman farmer who refuses to move away from her village. The audience will follow her seven-year struggle with officials who pressure her to relocate, while a strong devotion to her land compels her to remain in the place she calls home.
Casts & Crews:
Feng Yan
Directors
Runtime:
117
minutes
Language:
Hubei Dialect
Subtitles:
Chinese, English
Festivals & Awards:
2007 China Documentary Film Festival/Forum, China 2007 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival Ogawa Shinsuke Prize, Community Cinema Award, Japan 2008 Hong Kong International Film Festival, Humanitarian Award for Outstanding Documentary, Hong Kong
2007 China Documentary Film Festival/Forum, China 2007 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival Ogawa Shinsuke Prize, Community Cinema Award, Japan 2008 Hong Kong International Film Festival, Humanitarian Award for Outstanding Documentary, Hong Kong
Tags:
#Three Gorges, #reservoir migrants, #women on the Yangtze River
Director‘s Statement:
Of all the subjects I’ve had the chance to film, Zhang Bingai took the longest to warm up to me and reveal herself. We’d known each other for eight years before she confided to me the story of her life. When there is water about to rise up and submerge your house, and you are burdened by the huge pressure to make final decisions, all the memories of your rough life come raging out like floodwaters breaking through a dam. I was caught in this riptide and I drifted, unable to move at all, enveloped in a story I felt as though I had heard before, and I even shuddered for an instant with the feeling that I had touched her soul. As Bingai talked unhesitatingly to the camera in between her busy farm work and heated negotiations with officials, I understood how all her past choices and actions were based on her own life experiences. As I was editing Bingai, I came to realize that parallels emerged between her history and current situation entirely in the order in which the scenes were shot. A life’s richness and complexity goes far beyond our imagination. This coincidence made me lament over my silly and unnecessary efforts to try to “compose” the film.
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Casts & Crews
Feng Yan
Director
