Independent China 1

75 minutes

HAFF has special ties with China. During HAFF 2010, Chinese Sun Xun was the festival’s special guest as artist in residence. His impressive films and the exhibitions at CBKU and the Central Museum attracted a great deal of attention. Since then, he has not sat idle and made no fewer than two new films and put together scores of exhibitions home and abroad. After its world première at the Berlin Film Festival, his latest film Some Actions Which Haven't Been Defined Yet in the Revolution participates in the HAFF competition for shorts, and our Independent China programme includes his other recent film, Beyond-ism. 
His passionate activity seems exemplary of the tempestuous development China is going through, in the field of art in general and animation in particular. The Independent China programme section shows work by the new generation of single-minded Chinese filmmakers and fine artists, who have been working very hard over the last two decades. They are almost exclusively young filmmakers, born after the Cultural Revolution and some even after the demonstrations on Tiananmen Square. Still, many of them turn out to be notably inspired in their consideration of the nation’s cultural history. Another leitmotif in the programme is the freedom of approach, effortlessly varying between different techniques and the eager inquiry into materials. 
The programme was compiled in association with A4, Contemporary Arts Center (Chengdu, China). Various filmmakers will attend the screenings, and it is possible to chat with them afterwards. Apart from the film screenings, this programme section presents installations in the Louis Hartlooper Complex and one on top of the Neude Flat on Vinkenburgstraat: Last Experimental Flying Object by Ye Linghan.
One of the sections was compiled by Haiyang Wang. He won the 2010 Dioraphte Non-Narrative Grand Prix for Freud, Fish and Butterfly and was given carte blanche for this edition to put together a programme of his personal favourites. What drives him and what influenced him as a filmmaker? He selected work by painters, sculptors and installation makers. By the way, the festival also displays art work by Haiyang Wang himself, from Double Fikret, his latest film that has its world première at HAFF in the shorts competition, and there is a meet & greet with the artist.

This program screened as part of HAFF 2012

Showing in this program

21G

21G

  • Xun Sun
  • China, 2010
  • 27 min.

People constantly inquire into history, however, when we move away from the concept of history and we focus on a real second, minute, hour, day, year, century what we have is 100% real time and no more an abstract concept. Hence, the answer people obtain becomes less important and exciting that questioning. People’s understanding of the world is always changing in vain…We, all of us, fall into a trance and start wandering around; we feel awkward without a definite place and there’s nothing we can do. We all are vagabonds, wandering at the edge of the world.
21g
History has abandoned time, and we have lost our souls…
Magician
This world hasn’t an explicit concept of time; we live in a vacuum. This is a confusing world. There’s no law, no rule, and lie dominates everything. Everything is about cheating and being cheated.

Once, I was a great prophet.

Today, I am a magician; I wear a black top hat and a tuxedo, I am a professional liar! I make a living by deceiving. People are willing to buy lies from me! Lies here are like drugs for mental health. When an actual promise is broken once and again, lies can always make it up and turn everything into something confusing and complicated yet magnificent. People are obsessed with beautiful illusions and they keep indulging in…and smiling…

Telling a lie is morally condemned everywhere, however a magician is the only exception. A lie is the only system, an effective one, because the truth has never existed. No one knows what the truth is, and what parameter to use to distinguish the truth? When people feel lost, they can only pawn their souls, and pin their hopes on us. In return, we give lies, as they look much more beautiful than the truth…

Yes, magicians are the authority! A lie is the truth! And it’s cheap!
The truth is bitter, but the essence of lies can easily make everything great and sublime. We have boundless power, we dominate the world, and we manipulate the universe!
Dominate! Kidnapped souls! Magicians are the most revolutionary! Magicians are the most hysterical! Magicians are the ruling class! Everything, whatever quality or rule it is, can be changed and must be changed!
Lies are spreading all over the world… to believe or doubt becomes a habit.

Border
A specious world, empty eyes, no boundaries…
At the end — cliff and crag, national cinemism!
A group of ‘numbers’ is placed in order in front of a lying machine; any expression and action seem to be absolutely sincere, touching, and inebriating. However, this machine madly releases cold lights accompanying the variations in the motor tones that are to erase people’s memories. The illusion of the light trembles on the edge of the world, happiness of the oblivion and everything makes people addicted.
Behind the illusion, there’s a colorful and gorgeous light, rotating, gentle, and vague...
Smoothly refined walking stick, stifling top hat, noble shade, gorgeous cravat, celebration or disaster, everything seems in grand style. A magician’s festivity!

This is an empty theatre, with no people.

A telephone, a microscope, a globe, and biology…A bug from huge system, a parallel order, archeology, anatomy, and violin, are all stage props in a magician’s ‘tool box’…

Moreover…

A mottled art gallery, a restored monument, a boring museum, a happy square, a theatre with scarlet curtain, a church with a historical holy cross…we tease that even a jail is better than these useless buildings.
Circle

History is a circle, irregular but relatively standard round. It is full of regrets, and its circumference is not a true formula anymore; any revolution is a lame compass, keeps turning ungratefully, and ends up with nothing.

Clouds’ Nightmare

Clouds’ Nightmare

  • Junyong Wu
  • China, 2010
  • 8 min.

Wu Junyong: The film begins with a glance around a square in a long-lens view, and then shows the images of reveling symbols woven together before ending with a view of total solar eclipse. Originating from sources such as allusions, fables and mythologies and using clues from political power, the video goes from illusion to nothingness, just like a tragic epic.
Editor: The film begins with a glance around a square in a long-lens view, and then shows images woven with symbols, before ending with an image symbolizing disillusionment. The work is so emotional that it is like an epic story composed of images. It is a personal imagination towards history and power, or some kind of spell or illusion.

Hululu Honglonglong Hualala

Hululu Honglonglong Hualala

  • Lei Lei
  • China, 2010
  • 5 min.

The story is about a small village. One day, the heavy rain break the people's peaceful life,
A brave child swim to the Universe, to save the world.

Ink City

Ink City

  • Shaoxiong Chen
  • China, 2005
  • 3 min.

Chen Shaoxiong: The creative method of Ink City is photography-painting-video, using digital recording technology-manual reproducing and filtering-time linear editing and sound. The production process is the retransformation of transformed materials, such as peeling the skin of some object, then getting rid of the flesh until only the skeleton is left. Ghrough these three media, the realities of personal memory are removed, layer after layer, and the understanding of the depth and feeling of objects are extended. When displaying Ink City as a method of video, it is both a way to end and a way to start, because it returns to reality the remembrance of painting, photography and even the object. Therefore, in a new form, it restores something of the outside world to the outside world-urban hub.

LV Forest

LV Forest

  • Hua Bu
  • China, 2010
  • 5 min.
Temptation of the Land

Temptation of the Land

  • Anxiong Qiu
  • China, 2009
  • 13 min.
The Universe Cotton

The Universe Cotton

  • Lei Lei
  • China, 2009
  • 4 min.

The story is a narration of a pseudoscience on cotton plantation. The protagonist waters the cotton with music and love, resulting in the greatest harvest that sky is the only way for the cotton to go. Landing from sky, the cotton turns from cloud into candies in kiddy’s hand.

There Suddenly Recollected Mood

There Suddenly Recollected Mood

  • Wei Feng
  • China, 2004
  • 6 min.