MAMI Wrap Up – Day 3

The film’s story stemmed from a tragic accident that Schiele witnessed in Beijing when a young woman riding a bicycle with her child was knocked down by a vehicle and only she survived that fateful day.  Newspaper articles and his experiences in China added incidences to the drama.

The film was shot in real locations in Southern China and Shanghai. On asked about the challenges he faced while making the small budget indie film, the director shared how working in real locations was difficult but dealing with censorship was more amusing.

“The main challenge was censorship and people advised me to not shoot what I intended to as it would be censored. But let me tell all filmmakers here to not get disheartened and not listen to all voices ‘speaking for your betterment’. Do what you need to do to make the film. Yes, I had shot a lot, which was edited but I was amazed that a lot was allowed to be kept as it is. They gave me feedback as I worked around it. We filmmakers have to find a way to express our voice.”

Excerpts from the Jia Zhangke Masterclass

As Chaitanya Tamhane put it so aptly, these are the kind of inspiring conversations that we love being a part of at film festivals. Chinese director Jia Zhangke and Chaitanya Tamhane, director of the acclaimed Marathi film ‘Court’, engaged in a back and forth that was as thought-provoking as it was riveting.

Treading fearlessly into issues including one’s roots, identity, poverty, censorship and films as a means of expression, the conversation provided an intimate portrayal of Jia’s ethos and the elements that drive his filmmaking. One thing’s for certain: the more you learn about this soft-spoken, unassuming man and his travails, the more your respect for him grows.

One of the most interesting things that Chaitanya Tamhane asked Jia was, “You’ve faced so much resistance to your movies in China, where A Touch of Sin has been denied a release permit, and a slew of other issues including distribution. It’s amazing that you have not become cynical or bitter. How have you kept yourself motivated?”

Jia waxed poetic, comparing making a film to having a child. “It gives you a sense of beauty, hope and inspiration, and is ultimately very rewarding. There’s a magic when something comes to life, and that gives me a lot of strength to carry on. Regarding censorship, a creator should never sacrifice his artistic vision.”

Jia also remarked that there were changes happening in China, when it came to censorship in film. The various dialects in China are a big part of one’s identity and sense of home. In his debut feature Xiao Wu, Jia had only non professional actors in the last scene, in which they were speaking in their own dialects. The censorship bureau pulled them up for not speaking the widely-spoken, standardised Mandarin language, but after much coaxing from Jia, and explanations as to the significance of these dialects, they finally relented. “It is a process that took many years, but you can’t be passive and self-sacrificing,” he said. “I’ve resisted for many years and have finally seen changes in recent times.”

As for the future of art house films from Asia, in an age when everything is market-driven, he answered with a question of his own that cracked the audience up, “Why do we want to make independent films so badly, when they’re so hard to make?

“There are so many problems in our lives, and these societal problems are rampant all over the world. No matter what the situation is, this need to express these issues that we’re experiencing is essential. Indie films will always find a way to be made, because they have to be made.”

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