Emergent Visions: New Independent Documentaries
Emergent Visions presents screenings of exceptional independent documentary films produced in China and Taiwan, followed by scholarly discussions led by faculty and students. The films selected range from the just released to classics and evince distinct, compelling cinematic visions; yet they all share a commitment to serving as witness to the rapid changes taking place in China today.


Thursday, September 24, 2009     7:00 pm

Wheat Harvest (Mai Shou)
Directed by Xu Tong

Wheat Harvest (2008, 98 min) is an intimate portrayal of a young woman Miao, who makes a living as a prostitute in a suburb of Beijing and travels to her hometown in the Hebei Province during the wheat harvest season to help her parents and care for her sick father. Mixing cinema vérité, performances, and interviews, this film investigates the complex moral universe of the salon girls and their boyfriends, themselves migrant workers and living a life on the run. Placing no moral judgment on the underworld of the sex industry, the film inquires into the meanings of loyalty, love, and dignity in this subaltern space, with its distinct language, gestures, and rules of the game. Xu Tong structures the film with a non-linear timeline, departing from most cinema vrite works in China today. Receiving prizes and arousing controversy at film festivals in China and Hong Kong, this film not only offers unconventional and strong women characters rarely seen in Chinese cinema, but also raises questions of ethics of representation in documentary cinema. Wheat Harvest received the Red Chameleon Prize at the Cinema Digital Seoul Film Festival; the Innovation Award and Audience Favorite Award at Yunfest; and Third Prize at the Hong Kong Chinese Documentary Festival. Director Xu Tong is a photographer and novelist.

Discussants: Eileen Cheng-yin Chow, associate professor of Chinese literary and cultural studies, Harvard University

Location: CGIS South, Room 020
1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA
Contact: jieli@fas.harvard.edu