Oscar Winner Sees Boom in Chinese Documentaries1 min read
Reading Time: < 1 minuteChina is seeing a boom in documentary making with the spread of digital cameras and the wealth of issues arising from the country’s rapid modernization, Oscar-winning filmmaker Ruby Yang said Wednesday.
The Chinese-American filmmaker, who won an Academy Award in 2007 for her documentary short The Blood of Yingzhou District, said screenings of Chinese documentaries were still rare when she moved to Beijing from the San Francisco area in 2004.
“Now I’ve seen many young independent documentary filmmakers, their work being shown overseas, in Europe, in New York,” Yang told students after a screening of her new film The Warriors of Qiugang at the University of Hong Kong. She added that even large commercial studios are getting into the act, with Shanghai Media Group giving grants to young documentary makers.
“It’s very alive. I think it’s a great time to do documentaries in China because China is changing so quickly. There are so many subjects that one can do,” Yang said. “The quality of the films has improved a lot and there’s quite a bit of (financial) support from even inside of China and outside of China for these filmmakers.”
