Crossings in the Real: Ethnographic and Documentary Voices in Sinophone Cinema
UPCOMING EVENT | 04 February 2026 17:00 - 20 May 2026 19:00
This screening programme explores a collection of Sinophone films whose genres sit in between an ethnographic film, documentary, essay film, and fiction. Through this screening journey, we will engage with various languages, narratives, perspectives, styles and textures of films that come across and reflect on the ever-changing realities of contemporary Chinese society – rich with nuances, obscurities, complexities, and uncertainties. The series will cover four themes, including COVID-19, Gender, Art and Society, and Rural-Urban, and will run from Feb to May 2026. The screenings will be held at Pichette Auditorium, Pembroke College, and the China Centre, University of Oxford.
This film screening series is kindly supported by Oxford Seminar on Visual Culture in Modern and Contemporary China, and Pembroke College, University of Oxford.
Trinity Term 2025-2026
Session 4: Boundaries of Art
Screening time: 13 May 2026 (5-7pm)
Venue: Pembroke College, University of Oxford
China's Van Goghs 中国梵高
Directors: Yu Haibo, Yu Tianqi Kiki
Region: Mainland China
Run Time: 82 min
Screening Talk and Q&A: with Dr Yu Tianqi Kiki (in-person)
Synopsis: An intimate portrait of a peasant-turned oil painter transitioning from making copies of iconic Western paintings to creating his own authentic works of art.
China’s Van Goghs tells the story of the world’s largest oil painting reproduction village - Dafen Oil Painting Village (大芬油画村) in Shenzhen - and how its peasant painters, after years of copying Western masterpieces, confront reality, face themselves, and navigate the complex choices between morality, livelihood, and artistic pursuit. The film documents the difficulties, struggles, despair, and hope that these painters experience on their journey of transformation, as well as the clash and compromise between personal ideals and everyday reality. At the same time, the transformation of the Dafen painters mirrors the complexities and contradictions in China’s broader shift in the 21st century from Made in China to Created in China. It also critiques the exclusivity of the mainstream contemporary art world and the absurdity of how society assigns value to art.
Session 5: Rural and the Urban
Screening time: 20 May 2026 (4-7 PM)
Venue: Pembroke College, University of Oxford
The Mountain Sing 欢墟
Director: Badlands Film Group
Release year: 2021
Run time: 40min
Synopsis: “Hawfwen,” a traditional gathering that used to be popular, where the Zhuang people would sing folk songs. It often takes place around clan temples or under old trees. Singers are divided into male and female groups. They improvise their lyrics to sing in correspondence with one another. Traveling along the songs in antiphonal style, the camera has found different singers and gatherings, lingering in rural areas and cities, trying to find the broken echoes of “hawfwen.”
Before the Flood 淹没
Director: LI Yifan, YAN Yu
Release year: 2005
Run time: 150 min
Screening Talk and Q&A: with LI Yifan (online)
Synopsis: To build the world’s largest hydroelectric power station on China’s Yangtze River - the Three Gorges (sanxia三峡) Hydropower Station, the world’s largest reservoir will also be created in the Three Gorges region. The reservoir began storing water in 2003, and by 2009, it was completed. Many towns, villages, cultural relics, and natural landscapes along the river would be submerged. Among them was Fengjie County, made famous by the poems of Li Bai, one of China’s greatest ancient poets. This film documents the entire process in 2002 of relocating and demolishing the old county town of Fengjie in the first stage of water storage for the Three Gorges Reservoir. It records the helplessness of an elderly Korean War volunteer and innkeeper facing the loss of his livelihood; the loss of faith of a Christian church in pursuit of relocation compensation; and the unavoidable conflicts, entanglements, and painful inner struggles experienced by resettlement officials and urban poor during the relocation and demolition of the old city.
Before the Flood is the debut work of the two directors. It won the Wolfgang Staudte Award at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival’s Forum for Young Cinema and was selected for the 2005 Cinéma du Réel Festival in France.
Crossings in the Real: Ethnographic and Documentary Voices in Sinophone Cinema
UPCOMING EVENT | 04 February 2026 17:00 - 20 May 2026 19:00
This screening programme explores a collection of Sinophone films whose genres sit in between an ethnographic film, documentary, essay film, and fiction. Through this screening journey, we will engage with various languages, narratives, perspectives, styles and textures of films that come across and reflect on the ever-changing realities of contemporary Chinese society – rich with nuances, obscurities, complexities, and uncertainties. The series will cover four themes, including COVID-19, Gender, Art and Society, and Rural-Urban, and will run from Feb to May 2026. The screenings will be held at Pichette Auditorium, Pembroke College, and the China Centre, University of Oxford.
This film screening series is kindly supported by Oxford Seminar on Visual Culture in Modern and Contemporary China, and Pembroke College, University of Oxford.
Trinity Term 2025-2026
Session 4: Boundaries of Art
Screening time: 13 May 2026 (5-7pm)
Venue: Pembroke College, University of Oxford
China's Van Goghs 中国梵高
Directors: Yu Haibo, Yu Tianqi Kiki
Region: Mainland China
Run Time: 82 min
Screening Talk and Q&A: with Dr Yu Tianqi Kiki (in-person)
Synopsis: An intimate portrait of a peasant-turned oil painter transitioning from making copies of iconic Western paintings to creating his own authentic works of art.
China’s Van Goghs tells the story of the world’s largest oil painting reproduction village - Dafen Oil Painting Village (大芬油画村) in Shenzhen - and how its peasant painters, after years of copying Western masterpieces, confront reality, face themselves, and navigate the complex choices between morality, livelihood, and artistic pursuit. The film documents the difficulties, struggles, despair, and hope that these painters experience on their journey of transformation, as well as the clash and compromise between personal ideals and everyday reality. At the same time, the transformation of the Dafen painters mirrors the complexities and contradictions in China’s broader shift in the 21st century from Made in China to Created in China. It also critiques the exclusivity of the mainstream contemporary art world and the absurdity of how society assigns value to art.
Session 5: Rural and the Urban
Screening time: 20 May 2026 (4-7 PM)
Venue: Pembroke College, University of Oxford
The Mountain Sing 欢墟
Director: Badlands Film Group
Release year: 2021
Run time: 40min
Synopsis: “Hawfwen,” a traditional gathering that used to be popular, where the Zhuang people would sing folk songs. It often takes place around clan temples or under old trees. Singers are divided into male and female groups. They improvise their lyrics to sing in correspondence with one another. Traveling along the songs in antiphonal style, the camera has found different singers and gatherings, lingering in rural areas and cities, trying to find the broken echoes of “hawfwen.”
Before the Flood 淹没
Director: LI Yifan, YAN Yu
Release year: 2005
Run time: 150 min
Screening Talk and Q&A: with LI Yifan (online)
Synopsis: To build the world’s largest hydroelectric power station on China’s Yangtze River - the Three Gorges (sanxia三峡) Hydropower Station, the world’s largest reservoir will also be created in the Three Gorges region. The reservoir began storing water in 2003, and by 2009, it was completed. Many towns, villages, cultural relics, and natural landscapes along the river would be submerged. Among them was Fengjie County, made famous by the poems of Li Bai, one of China’s greatest ancient poets. This film documents the entire process in 2002 of relocating and demolishing the old county town of Fengjie in the first stage of water storage for the Three Gorges Reservoir. It records the helplessness of an elderly Korean War volunteer and innkeeper facing the loss of his livelihood; the loss of faith of a Christian church in pursuit of relocation compensation; and the unavoidable conflicts, entanglements, and painful inner struggles experienced by resettlement officials and urban poor during the relocation and demolition of the old city.
Before the Flood is the debut work of the two directors. It won the Wolfgang Staudte Award at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival’s Forum for Young Cinema and was selected for the 2005 Cinéma du Réel Festival in France.