documentary |

New Talent: The Afghan Bruce Lee (Video)

Mar 21, 2017 / People /

That strange truth-fiction thing strikes again: if you were to ask a screenwriter to contrive a Dickensian figure for the post-9/11 action-movie generation, they would not be able to top Abbas Alizada. Alizada, the youngest of ten children raised in the hardscrabble, war-torn streets of Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, discovered the classic kung fu movies of Bruce Lee as a teenager, and dedicated himself to becoming a martial arts champion in Lee's image. Read More

In ‘Maineland,’ Chinese High School Kids Live the American Dream

Mar 14, 2017 / News /

The director of Maineland, Wang Miao, knows the children’s struggles all too well. Wang grew up in Beijing and, at the age of 12, immigrated to the U.S. with her family. Read More

Documentaries Fight for Attention Amid Box Office Boom

Dec 27, 2016 / News /

Even as the Chinese movie market flourishes, documentaries are always a hard sell. But 2016 saw a glimmer of hope for the underappreciated genre, with Chinese documentaries securing higher ticket sales and some serious accolades on the world stage. Read More

Q&A With Fan Jian on Documentaries of Desire

Dec 19, 2016 / News /

Veteran filmmaker Fan Jian’s latest documentary, "Still Tomorrow" won the Special Jury Award for Feature-Length Documentary at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), the world’s biggest festival for the genre. Read More

Chinese Documentary ‘Hooligan Sparrow’ Makes Oscar Shortlist

Dec 12, 2016 / News /

The 84-minute documentary recorded the protests against child sexual abuse at a primary school in China’s southern island province of Hainan. Read More

Exposing Sexual Abuse in China: Q&A with ‘Hooligan Sparrow’ Director Nanfu Wang

Jul 4, 2016 / People /

Nanfu Wang hoped that a woman called Ye Haiyan, who had offered free sex on the Internet to draw attention to the plight of poor women selling their bodies to support their children, would lead her to the prostitutes she wanted to interview. Read More