Asian docs about Asia
Documentaries made in Asia, by Asians & about Asia
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- DirectorIsao TakahataA live-action documentary film, this independent film was produced by Nibariki (Miyazaki's personal office), with the revenue from Nausicaä. At first, it was supposed to be an animated film which took place in the town of Yanagawa. After the success of Nausicaä, Tokuma wanted to produce another animated movie (of course, they wanted a Nausicaä sequel), and Miyazaki was looking for a good project. Miyazaki visited Yanagawa, and was impressed by the beautiful town with its canals, and came up with an idea for a film about high school boys and girls in Yanagawa, and thought that Takahata, who worked as a producer for Nausicaä, should direct such a film. However, when Takahata visited Yanagawa for research, he came to be more interested in the history of the town, especially how local people fought to preserve the canals which have been a part of the community for a long time, and how they put a great deal of effort to clean up the once polluted canals. As a result, it became a live action documentary, and Miyazaki decided to spend his own money on it. It took three years for Takahata to complete this film.
- DirectorHiroshi TeshigaharaStarsYoshi KatôA documentary about the life and art of wood-block artist Katsushika Hokusai.
- DirectorSusumu Hani
- DirectorHiroshi TeshigaharaStarsTomoko NaraokaSofu TeshigaharaThe history and art of ikebana, a centuries old Japanese art of flower arrangement and a look inside the Sogetsu School of Ikebana, where the director's father Sofu Teshigahara worked as the grand master of the school.
- DirectorSusumu HaniYoshirô KawazuKyushiro KusakabeStarsDonald RichieEight filmmakers collaborate with Teshigahara to bring a newsreel-style snapshot of Tokyo in 1957-58, when it had eight and a half million people and was the largest city in the world. The industry of the people is evident, with Katsushika Hokusai's woodcuts interspersed with shots of contemporary workers. We watch women give a makeup demonstration, we visit bridal stores, and we see a young woman win a rock and roll singing contest and follow her home with her prizes; we go to the Ginza on Christmas Eve, with bars and nightclubs full tilt, and we join the throng at the Meiji shrine on New Year's Day. Some surreal touches add comedy to underscore Tokyo's energy and life.
- DirectorSuha Arin"Fatma of the Forest" documentary, screened in 1979, International Year of Children, reflects life, longings and a major "fear" in her subconscious of an 12-years old "woodcutter" girl living under very hard conditions in the forests of Toros Mountains at an altitude of approximately 2000 mt. The documentary, aiming to symbolize a little-known but common practice of child labor with Fatma, accomplishes a dramatic portrayal of laborers who work for Ministry of Forestry in works of lumbering and logging, totally deprived of social security. In the documentary, alongside with the daily lives of the woodcutters, Semah Dance, one of the most important elements of the folklore of woodcutters, is the final act. The Semah Dance symbolizes a "resistance" that was started about 400 year ago by the famous folk poet Pîr Sultan Abdal.
- DirectorSuha ArinStarsSureyya ArinWith ages ranging from 64 to 104, the film "When the Fog Dispelled" documents nine artisans who constructed many of these houses. Also revealing aspects of traditional Eastern Black Sea life.
- DirectorAleksandr SokurovExaming the daily life of an elderly woman in rural Japan allows Sokurov to evoke how folkways (Japanese and Russian) shape our worldview.
- DirectorAleksandr SokurovStarsMiho ShimaoMaya ShimaoA portrait of the widow of writer Toshio Shimao, living on an isolated island with her disabled daughter, shunning comforts and other company.
- DirectorWenguang WuStarsMay May Ci ZhangBo GaoSen MouIndependent Chinese documentary by Wu Wenguan following and interviewing a group of young artists around the time of the events Tiananmen about their lives and careers.
- DirectorStanley KwanStarsCheh ChangKaige ChenLeslie CheungStanley Kwan examines queer themes in Chinese film for this insightful documentary, produced for the British Film Institute's "Century of Cinema" series. Using film clips, personal recollections, and interviews with film luminaries (including Ang Lee, Tsui Hark, Chen Kaige and Leslie Cheung), Kwan demonstrates how Chinese cinema has challenged gender norms for years, while asserting his own sexuality in a poignant conversation with his mother.
- DirectorLiang ZhaoStarsFang LeiZhang WeiLiang YangThe film follows a group of drug addicts.
- DirectorCao FeiNing OuArmed with video cameras, twelve artists present a highly stylized portrait of SAN YUAN LI, a traditional village besieged by China's urban sprawl. China's rapid modernization literally traps the village of San Yuan Li within the surrounding skyscrapers of Guangzhou, a city of 12 million people. The villagers move to a different rhythm, thriving on subsistence farming and traditional crafts. They resourcefully reinvent their traditional lifestyle by tending rice paddies on empty city lots and raising chickens on makeshift rooftop coops. Directed by acclaimed visual artists Ou Ning and Cao Fei and commissioned by the Venice Biennale, SAN YUAN LI explores the modern paradox of China's economic growth and social marginalization.
- DirectorZhuangzhuang TianStarsKuirong WangDelamu ¨C Tibetan for "Peace Angel". Since ancient times, China's two primary land routes connecting it to the outside world have been the Silk Road in the north, and Tea Horse-Road in the south. The mountain village of Bingzhongluo-Tibetan for "Village of Tibetans" is located on the high plateau of western Yunnan Province, at the foot of Gaoligong Mountain. Traveling along the Nujiang River, one can reach the southern Tibetan border town of Chawalong-Tibetan for "Valley of Dry Heat." But with no roads connecting the two places, since ancient times the transport of all goods and supplies has relied entirely on horse caravans. The journey of more than 90 kilometers zigzags through high mountain slopes, dense forests, gorges and wastelands. Year-round caravans have plied the Tea-Horse Road, traversing the Hengduan Mountains, packing tea, salt, grains and other provisions. Traveling upstream along the Three Rivers, the route reaches Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, India and Western Asia, ultimately linking to Europe. Traveling downstream along the Three Rivers, the route reaches Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. Created more than two thousand years ago, the Tea-Horse Road is the highest and most perilous of the world's ancient routes, and to this day still show vibrant signs of life. This film is a record of the Tea-Horse Road, the caravans of the Nujiang River Valley, and the aboriginal peoples who live there -- Mm. Ding who has a family with 15 members speaking 6 languages, a pastor who was jailed for 15 years for his believing, a 104 years old lady who walks through 3 centuries, a village head whose wife run away, a caravan who shares one wife with his elder brother, a young lama in the Buddhist temple who feels lonely sometimes, a 82 years old caravan leader whose story is a legend of the Tibetan caravans¡
- DirectorZhangke JiaStarsKe MaAbout people around fashion and clothing industry in China.
- DirectorLiang ZhaoStarsWang Yu FuGe TaoIn a small town near China's North Korea border, a state police station exerts itself as a solicitous caretaker of the locals. As it goes out to catch criminals and punish them too, professionalism fades into the background.
- DirectorLixin FanStarsChanghua ZhangYang ZhangSuqin ChenA couple embarks on a journey home for Chinese new year along with 130 million other migrant workers, to reunite with their children and struggle for a future. Their unseen story plays out as China soars towards being a world superpower.
- DirectorLiang ZhaoStarsZhang WeiyeXiao YuanIt is a fantastic documentary about Chinese govt's systemic oppression and persecution toward ordinary folk who petition the government.
- DirectorCong Feng
- DirectorZhangke JiaStarsMichelangelo AntonioniYindi CaoHsin-i ChangFocuses on the people, their stories and architecture spanning from the mid-1800s, when Shanghai was opened as a trading port, to the present day.
- DirectorPo-lin ChiStarsXiang HongCing-Soong LaiNolay PihoDocumenting Taiwan from an aerial perspective offering a glimpse of Taiwan's natural beauty as well as the effect of human activities and urbanization on our environment.
- DirectorXiang HuangJ.P. SniadeckiRoutao Xu'Yumen' combines ghost stories and the 'ruin tourism' to form a celluloid psychocollage of wandering souls, seeking connection to each other and a lost collective history among the frozen remnants of the abandoned oil town of Yumen in China's north-west Gansu province.
- DirectorSinging ChenKuo-Liang ChiangHaving grown up in the mountains Chiayi, installation artist WANG Wen-chih weaves his memories of mountains and forests into his work. Using natural materials such as bamboo, rattan and wood, WANG creates his art with hands and collective labor. The huge spaces he constructs emit such deep and strong power that surprise and move countless visitors. This film follows WANG on his journey of creation.
- DirectorHao ZhouStarsLi FuMa SuyingGeng YangboDATONG follows the life and work of a controversial Chinese Communist Mayor GENG YANBO to tell the story about how he takes a radical reform to demolish 140,000 households and relocate half a million people to give way to restoration of Ancient relic walls in order to adopt a clean economic growth from tourism and culture, which he believes will do good to DA TONG citizen in the long term. With two years in the footsteps of GENG, along with the changing ideology and confrontations from the public, the film is trying to draw a looming shape of future of China.
- DirectorQiu JiongjiongStarsYifan CaiXiao'ou MaYi SichengAn experimental documentary epic, Mr. Zhang Believes recounts 30 years of China's 20th-century history through the story of Mr. Zhang Xianchi and the interacting forms of theatrical fiction and autobiography.
- DirectorLiang ZhaoUnder the sun, the heavenly beauty of grasslands will soon be covered by the raging dust of mines. Facing the ashes and noises caused by heavy mining , the herdsmen have no choice but to leave as the meadow areas dwindle. In the moonlight, iron mines are brightly lit throughout the night. Workers who operate the drilling machines must stay awake. The fight is tortuous, against the machine and against themselves. Meanwhile, coal miners are busy filling trucks with coals. Wearing a coal-dust mask, they become ghostlike creatures. An endless line of trucks will transport all the coals and iron ores to the iron works. There traps another crowd of souls, being baked in hell. In the hospital, time hangs heavy on miners' hands. After decades of breathing coal dust, death is just around the corner. They are living the reality of purgatory, but there will be no paradise.
- DirectorShengze ZhuThirteen dinners of a Chinese migrant worker's family over the course of fourteen months. The film portrays a series of random occurrences. Joys, frustrations and the struggle for survival. The meals unfold in real-time through thirteen static, long takes. Each take captures with vivid detail the reality of the relationships between the different family members. As the seasons unfold, so does time and the echoes for better working conditions penetrate the frame. Issues such as the one-child policy and the possibilities for better wages weigh heavily on the minds of the three-generation family. Thus, the room where the family gathers night after night becomes an observational microcosm of the transformations that the Chinese working class faces on a daily basis. By examining the lives of migrant workers, who left their rural home-towns to look for a better life in cities, the film creates a powerful and moving meditation on China's economic boom and massive urbanization. Another Year is an extremely acute depiction of the complexities of the Chinese economy and society.
- DirectorTao GuThe documentary features Dong, a young man migrated from the wind-blown plains of Inner Mongolia to a densely populated Southern China, with his parents, during China's economic reform. Young Dong's spirited ideals were at odds with the values of a rapidly modernizing society in the early throws of consumerist frenzy and is spiritually alienated and socially troubled. When a good old friend and filmmaker returns to the city with a video camera in hand on the eve of Dong's 30th birthday, something in him stirs and he begins pouring out the interior landscape he had so long kept sealed away.
- DirectorSatyajit RayStarsKallol BoseSubir BoseNorman EllisThis documentary shows the life of the greatest Bengali talent of all time, Rabindranath Tagore. His work in Bengali culture and literature.
- DirectorMani Kaul
- DirectorMani KaulStarsFariduddin DagarZia Mohiyuddin DagarThis documentary about the classical music of India covers a genre in which a text of poetry is sung.
- DirectorMani KaulStarsRobin DasAnita KanwarAshok SharmaDirector Mani Kaul poetically observes the ancient art of pottery and its deep cultural significance.
- DirectorAnand PatwardhanStarsDeepa AroraRita BhatiaSupriya PathakThe film story based on daily battle for survival of the 4 million slum dwellers of Bombay who make up half the city's population
- DirectorSatyajit RayStarsSoumitra ChatterjeeUtpal DuttHaradhan BannerjeeThe life and work of the writer Sukumar Ray, Satyajit Ray's father. Ray made this film as a tribute to celebrate the centenary of his birth. The film comprises still photographs and readings from Sukumar Ray's writings.
- DirectorGovindan Aravindan
- DirectorMasao AdachiStarsMasao AdachiA visual document of the life of serial killer Norio Nagayama, focusing entirely of his living environment with some narrated biographical information.
- DirectorNagisa ÔshimaStarsHôsei KomatsuYunbogi is a child who lives in a slum on the outskirts of Taegu, South Korea. Abandoned by his mother, Yunbogi must care for his two sisters and brother by taking on a series of small jobs.
- DirectorNagisa ÔshimaStarsNagisa ÔshimaIna FunatsukiTomi ShimadaStory of Kyoto: its history, culture, and the role it has played in the director's life and the life of his mother.
- DirectorKon IchikawaStarsAntonio AmbuGary AndersonGerry AshworthKon Ichikawa examines the beauty and rich drama on display at the 1964 Summer Games in Tokyo, creating a record of observations that range from the expansive to the intimate.
- DirectorMasahiro ShinodaA documentary about the 1972 Winter Olympic Games in Sapporo, Japan.
- DirectorShôhei ImamuraStarsShigeru TsuyuguchiYoshie HayakawaShôhei ImamuraPlastics salesman Oshima disappeared without a word to anyone, and has been missing for two years. Shohei Imamura and his crew follow Oshima's fiancé Yoshie and actor Shigeru Tsuyuguchi as they investigate the disappearance.
- DirectorShôhei ImamuraStarsChieko AkazaEtsuko AkazaTami AkazaA documentary film showcasing life in postwar Japan as seen through the eyes of a bar hostess.
- DirectorShôhei ImamuraIn Thailand, Imamura brings together three Japanese soldiers who did not return home after World War II to discuss their experiences during and after the war.
- DirectorShôhei ImamuraStarsFujiko FujitaFujio FujitaMatsuyoshi FujitaThree years after his first two documentaries on these soldiers who did not return, Imamura invites one of the interviewees, settled in Thailand, to return to Japan.
- DirectorShôhei ImamuraStarsKurahachi FukudaTora HiranoShôhei ImamuraDirector Shôhei Imamura interviews Kikuyo Zendo, a 73 year-old Japanese woman who was trafficked in 1921 to work as a prostitute in Malaysia. She discusses her sex work career and marriages. In the 1970s she lives in poverty with her family.
- DirectorMitsuo YanagimachiThe 1970s in Japan saw the rise of motorcycle gangs, which drew the interest of the media. The movie follows a member of the "Black Emperors" gang and his interaction with his parents after he gets in trouble with the police.
- DirectorShuntarô TanikawaShûji TerayamaStarsShuntarô TanikawaShûji TerayamaThis remarkable compilation follows an exchange of video letters that took place between Shuji Terayama and Shuntaro Tanikawa in the months immediately preceding Terayama's death. It can be thought of as a home video produced by two preeminent poets and inter-laid with highly abstract philosophizing, slightly aberrant behavior and occasionally flamboyant visuals.
- DirectorKazuo HaraStarsKenzo OkuzakiRiichi AikawaMasaichi HamaguchiA documentary following Kenzo Okuzaki, a 62-year-old WW2 veteran notorious for his protests against Emperor Hirohito, as he tries to expose the needless executions of two Japanese soldiers during the war.
- DirectorShinsuke OgawaStarsTatsumi HijikataJunko MiyashitaTakahiro TamuraThe movie compiles footage taken by Ogawa Production for a period of more than ten years after the collective moved to Magino village. Unique to this film are fictional reenactments of the history of the village in the sections titled "The Tale of Horikiri Goddess" and "The Origins of Itsutsudomoe Shrine". Ogawa combines all the techniques that were developed in his previous films to simultaneously express multiple layers of time--the temporally of rice growing and of human life, personal life histories, the history of the village, the time of the Gods, and new time created through theatrical reenactment--bring them into a unified whole. The faces of the Magino villagers appear in numerous roles--sometimes as individuals, sometimes as people who carry the history of the village in their memories, sometimes as storytellers reciting myths, and even as members of the crowd in the fictional sequences--transcending time and space.
- DirectorNaomi KawaseStarsNaomi KawaseUno KawaseKiyonobu YamashiroIn this autobiographical documentary, filmmaker Naomi Kawase seeks to reach her mother and father who abandoned her at birth.
- DirectorNaomi KawaseStarsNaomi KawaseUno KawaseKiyonobu YamashiroKawase tries to come to terms with her late father, whom she never knew when growing up, and contemplates getting a tattoo like his.
- DirectorNaomi KawaseStarsMasayuki HatakeyamaHirotsugu InjiHidemitsu IshiyamaThe elderly people living in the forest areas of the Yoshino Mountains and the village of Nishi-Yoshino are resilient loners. Kawase records them in their daily activities, revealing their humorous and frank philosophies about hard work, isolation, loneliness, and growing old. One woman dryly says, "Turn your camera off, being old is not entertaining." Another adds philosophically, "The wind will blow, the future will come. Without suffering there is no happiness."
- DirectorKazuo HaraStarsMitsuharu InoueYutaka HaniyaTetsu HijikataAn intimate portrait of the last years in the life of eccentric novelist Mitsuharu Inoue.
- DirectorMakoto Satô
- DirectorMakoto SatôStarsShigeo GochoHidetoshi NishijimaGocho Shigeo died in 1983 at the age of 36. He left three books of photography, one entitled Self and Others. It was a series of portraits of ordinary people around him, nothing flashy or glamorous. Yet there was something about his photographs that gradually grew on people over the years.
- DirectorMakoto Satô
- DirectorYutaka TsuchiyaStarsKarin AmemiyaHidehito ItôYutaka TsuchiyaKarin and her "comrade" Ito have started a band, playing nationalist punk music. Left-wing filmmaker TSUCHIYA decides to give Karin a video camera to film herself and her daily life. Camera on board, Karin travels to North Korea and meets former Red Army terrorists who fled from Japan thirty years ago.
- DirectorYutaka TsuchiyaStarsShiori GechovTakayuki HasegawaIn Tokyo, a Goth girl and an Internet voyeur connect in the post 9-11 world of surveillance and paranoia.
- DirectorKazuo HaraTen years in the making, Kazu Hara's three-and-a-half-hour-long epic is a longitudinal study of asbestos victims demanding reparations from a heartless state.
- DirectorNaotarô EndôThrough the lives of professionals working at Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo, the film portrays how Tsukiji has been the center of fish culinary culture and helped Japanese food culture to flourish as we know it today.
- DirectorKazuhiro SôdaStarsWaichiro MurataKumiko KomiyamaKiyoko KashiwagiForsaken by the era of modernization of post-war Japan, Ushimado, a town so beloved by film director Shohei Imamura that he set two of his films there ("Black Rain", "Dr. Akagi"), is rapidly aging and declining. Its rich, ancient culture and the tight-knit community are also on the verge of disappearing. Portrayed in black and white photography, this latest observational documentary by Kazuhiro Soda ("Campaign", "Mental", "Oyster Factory") poetically depicts the twilight days of a village and its people by the dreamlike Inland Sea.
- DirectorGarin NugrohoStarsIbrahim KadirBerliana FebryantiJosé Rizal ManuaTells the true story of the didong (a style of ballad) poet Ibrahim Kadir. He was in prison and was present during the mass killings of an estimated 500,000 suspected communists when Indonesian President Suharto came to power in 1965. His humanistic poems recreate that era.
- DirectorLeonard Retel HelmrichThe documentary is the start of a trilogy and follows the family Sjamsuddin, existing of three generations in the slums of Jakarta Indonesia.
- DirectorForugh FarrokhzadStarsForugh FarrokhzadEbrahim GolestanHossein MansouriSet in a leper colony in the north of Iran, The House is Black juxtaposes "ugliness", of which there is much in the world as stated in the opening scenes, with religion and gratitude.
- DirectorAbbas KiarostamiIn this documentary a citizen is trying in a street of Tehran to control the traffic and not let people to break the law which cause them to react differently and lead to funny situations.
- DirectorAbbas KiarostamiStarsMohammad DadrasA concealed camera follows a group of first graders during their day at school.
- DirectorAbbas KiarostamiStarsBabak AhmadpoorFarhang AkhavanMohammad Reza NematzadehIn this documentary, Kiarostami asks a number of students about their school homework. The answers of some children shows the darker side of this method of education.
- DirectorMohsen Makhmalbaf
- DirectorKim LonginottoZiba Mir-HosseiniA documentary about real divorce cases in Iran's tribunals.
- DirectorMohsen MakhmalbafStarsGhafour BarahouyiMaryam OzbakMohsen MakhmalbafDocumentary showing the life of children of the Afghan villages bordering Iran, and how their life and culture were affected by Taliban regime.
- DirectorArtavazd PeleshianMonumental picture exploring the identity and fate of the Armenian nation.
- DirectorOtar IosselianiUnder the premise of documenting for the sake of preservation the various forms of Georgian religious chanting, a distinct kind of sonorous psalmody passed over from generation to generation, what Otar Iosseliani captures in reality is the snapshot of a not-so-distant past that coexists with the world we might know yet transports us to what used to be.
- DirectorKidlat TahimikStarsHomer AbiadIñigo VitoMaria PehipolKadu, a boy from Pakil, Laguna, experiences the dissolution of tradition as it gives way to capitalism in the form of Madame, a foreigner who initially came to their village as a customer during the Festival of Turumba.
- DirectorRaya MartinStarsAdvencula AlcantaraLeon AlcantaraMaria AlcantaraMartin travels to Itbayat island, of the Batan group, on the far north of the Phillipines, to record the customs of its inhabitants and their life away from modern civilization. Itbayat is open to visitors only in the summer; the storms raging in the region completely isolate the islanders for the rest of the year. The camera gives them the chance to tell their stories. "I was interested in understanding the characteristics of the community beyond its practices and traditions", says the director. Winner of the Best Documentary award at the .MOV, Manila's alternative festival dedicated to digital film.
- DirectorLav DiazStarsHazel OrencioErwin RomuloErwin Romulo, the best friend of the late film critic Alexis Tioseco, recalls the events after the critic and his girlfriend Nika Bohinc's murder during a buglary in their home in Quezon City. Lav Diaz makes use of one long take to allow Romulo an uninterrupted narration of the events.
- DirectorLav DiazOn 8 November 2013, the city Tacloban on Leyte Island, Philippines, was largely destroyed by Typhoon Haiyan, causing the death of 6,201 people.
- StarsSatoshi SuzukiSamurai Castles The Kumamoto Castle from the 17th century was heavily damaged by a series of powerful earthquakes, but the oldest sections of stonewalls miraculously survived and avoided major damage, while newer walls all collapsed. A 3D model created from 4K drone shots unveils the wisdom of samurai warriors.
- DirectorMitsuo SatoKyoichi YamaokaStarsMotoharu JônouchiDocumenting the conditions of day laborers in San'ya.
- DirectorToshio MatsumotoStarsHideo KanzeTakeshi KusakaA documentary about traditional weavers of Nishijin.
- DirectorHiroshi TeshigaharaStarsSofu TeshigaharaSculptor Sofu Teshigahara, father of filmmaker Hiroshi Teshigahara, prepares for an exhibition.
- DirectorToshio MatsumotoWhile extracting and polishing their blocks of stone, stonecutters used to say "the stone is coming to life". This paradox provided Matsumoto with the best metaphor for what making a film is all about.
- DirectorLi-Shao LeeAs Taipei's house price-to-income (PTI) ratio has topped the world, Taiwanese people may work hard all their lives but still can't afford a costly apartment. Caught up in this money game of flipping properties, real estate agents hunt their targets in co-opetition, while being torn between the buyers and sellers. The film focuses on a real estate agent husband and his painter wife, and the couple's hectic life: the husband chasing after money with his silver tongue, while the wife producing art with her paint brush. Together, they orchestrate a landscape of Taiwan in this very century.
- DirectorJiayin LiuStarsHuifen JiaJiayin LiuZaiping LiuDaily life in an impossibly cramped Beijing apartment takes on epic proportions in this, intimate portrait, with unprecedented access, of a working-class Chinese family.
- DirectorJiayin LiuStarsHuifen JiaJiayin LiuZaiping LiuThe director shows herself and her parents making dumplings in their apartment with nine fixed camera positions, with which she revolves around the kitchen table.
- DirectorZhangke JiaStarsXiaodong LiuSanming HanChina's greatest living filmmaker Jia Zhangke (Platform, The World) travels with acclaimed painter Liu Xiaodong from China to Thailand as they meet everyday workers in the throes of social turmoil. Liu Xiaodong is well-known for his monumental canvases, particularly those inspired by China's Three Gorges Dam project. In DONG, Jia Zhangke visits Liu on the banks of Fengjie, a city about to be swallowed up by the Yangtze River. The area is in the process of being "de-constructed" by armies of shirtless male workers who form the subject of Liu's paintings. Liu and Jia next travel to Bangkok, where Liu paints Thai sex workers languishing in brothels. The two sets of paintings are united in their subjects' shared sense of malaise in the face of the dehumanizing labor afforded them.
- After 5 years of preliminary research , 4 months of uninterrupted documentary photography, it entries into the the ancient imperial palace with young perspective, records and reveals the restoration technology of top Chinese cultural relic.
- DirectorSanjay Kak"Shasan valo, sun lo aaj - Hamare gaon mein hamaara raaj" (Listen to us, you who rule - our villages, we control). A boat carrying that cargo of defiance begins an urgent journey through the Narmada valley. For more than 15 years, people of the valley have resisted a series of massive dams on their river, and in their struggle have exposed the deceptive heart of India's development politics. The struggle has forged unusual alliances. Adivasis in the hills, farmers from the Nimad plain, sand-quarriers and fishermen on the river, and middle-class activists. They are ranged against the powerful apparatus of this chosen model of development - ministers, magistrates, police commissioners, the World Bank, and in this era of privatization, multinational corporations. This is a dialogue with authority that is usually conducted across barricades. But through the tumult and slogans, we make our way to the transactions between power and powerlessness, between truth and untruth. In a world where the use of violence has become the arbiter of all political debate, "Words on Water" is about a sustained non-violent resistance, that almost joyous defiance, which empowers the people as they struggle for their rights, yet saves them from the ultimate humiliation of violence.
- DirectorFumio KameiIn the middle of 1938, Kamei Fumio and his film crew got themselves attached to an infantry regiment which they followed around through China for about four months, filming their marching and their fighting and their waiting and their dying - in short, their suffering, and not theirs alone, but also that of the people around them, their designated enemies.
- DirectorOmar AmiralayA documentary about the impact of newly introduced political reforms on a rural village in Syria - a place plagued with tribalism, ignorance and evil.
- DirectorShôhei ImamuraStarsShôhei ImamuraThe searching of un-return japanese soldier in Malaysia by Imamura Shohei with the help from local people.
- DirectorShigenori Mizuno
- DirectorKazuo HaraStarsKazuo HaraMiyuki TakedaSachiko KobayashiIn this uncomfortably intimate film, documentary filmmaker Kazuo Hara visits his ex-girlfriend Miyuki and records her new relationships.
- DirectorWenguang WuA documentary of the Yuanda Song and Dance Tent Show, a wandering troupe from the countryside of Henan Province that is on the road all four seasons of the year.
- DirectorSuha ArinIn 1976, Suha Arin was a tutor at the faculty of Social Sciences of Ankara University at the Press and Publishing Department (today's Communication Faculty). Like many of his films, the documentary "Safranbolu: Reflections of Time" was filmed with the help of a group of enthusiastic students. Safranbolu presents some of the few surviving examples of striking traditional Turkish architecture. The beauty of houses as well as the negative impacts of the passage of time are reflected in the documentary "Safranbolu: Reflections of Time" one of the aims of the film was to raise public awareness of the need for protection for culture and nature. In 1977, the Culture Ministry declared Safranbolu to be a "Historic Site" and in 1995 UNESCO declared the area to be a World Heritage Site. Therefore, making the area not just ours but joint heritage with all the world. At the 1977 Antalya Film Festival "Safranbolu: Reflections of Time" was chosen "Best Documentary Film" and won the Golden Orange Prize.
- DirectorHao WuTwo live streamers seek fame, fortune and human connection in China's digital idol-making universe, ultimately finding the same promises and perils online as in their real lives. Winner of Grand Jury Award (Documentary) at 2018 SXSW.
- DirectorSanjay Kak'Let us declare that the state of war does exist and shall exist', the revolutionary patriot had said almost a hundred years ago, and that forewarning travels into India's present, as armed insurrection simmers in Bastar, in the troubled heart of central India. To the east too, beleaguered adivasis from the mineral-rich hills of Odisha come forth bearing their axes, and their songs. And in the north the swelling protests by Punjabi peasants sees hope coagulate - once more - around that iconic figure of Bhagat Singh, revolutionary martyr of the anti-colonial struggle. But are revolutions even possible anymore? Or have those dreams been ground down into our nightmares? This is a chronicle of those who live the revolutionary ideal in India, a rare encounter with the invisible domain of those whose everyday is a fight for another ideal of the world. Red Ant Dream is the third in a cycle of films that interrogate the workings of Indian democracy, and follows Jashn-e-Azadi (2007) about the idea of freedom for Kashmir, and Words on Water (2002) about the people's movement against large dams in the Narmada valley.
- DirectorSumiko HanedaHaneda's first independent film, a project she honed over several years, is a paean to a millenary cherry tree that can be found in the Neo village in the Gifu prefecture. The film deals with the history of this magnificent tree, the changing social life of the community living around it and the filmmaker's memories. As Haneda wrote, this personal film became an act of self-discovery, both a gesture of celebration and mourning, which allowed her to find a new path in filmmaking.
- DirectorOtar IosselianiDocumentary of the Rustavi Metal Works, in the country of Georgia.