''Fengming, a Chinese Memoir'' (), also known as ''Chronicle of a Chinese Woman'', is a

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

directed by Wang Bing. The film consists almost entirely of an interview with the elderly He Fengming, recounting her experiences in post-1949 China.

Synopsis

Caught up the fervor of the Chinese Revolution, she abandoned her plans to study at university and took a job at the ''

Gansu Daily Gansu (, ; alternately romanized as Kansu) is a province in Northwest China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeast part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibe ...

'' newspaper. Her husband, fellow journalist Wang Jingchao, wrote several critical essays at the height of the

Hundred Flowers Campaign The Hundred Flowers Campaign, also termed the Hundred Flowers Movement (), was a period from 1956 to 1957 in the People's Republic of China during which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) encouraged citizens to openly express their opinions of t ...

. With the launch of the subsequent

Anti-Rightist Movement The Anti-Rightist Campaign () in the People's Republic of China, which lasted from 1957 to roughly 1959, was a political campaign to purge alleged "Rightists" within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the country as a whole. The campaign was l ...

, Wang was attacked for these statements, and she was condemned by association. The two were sent to separate

labor camp A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...

s, where Wang eventually died. He Fengming was released, briefly imprisoned again during the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal ...

, and finally rehabilitated. In the early 1990s she published a memoir, ''My Life in 1957''.

Production

Wang Bing first met He in 1995 and interviewed her in the course of research for his second feature (after

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's '' Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks''). After receiving a commission from the Kunsten Festival des Arts, Wang decided to record He's story, resulting in a 50- and then a 130-minute film. After the Festival, Wang went back and conducted an additional interview, bringing the film to its final three-hour running time. The director employed an unusually stripped-down style, relying mainly a single camera set-up with only the occasional

cut Cut may refer to: Common uses * The act of cutting, the separation of an object into two through acutely-directed force ** A type of wound ** Cut (archaeology), a hole dug in the past ** Cut (clothing), the style or shape of a garment ** Cut (ea ...

or dissolve. The full-length version premiered, out of competition, at the

2007 Cannes Film Festival The 60th Cannes Film Festival ran from 16 to 27 May 2007. The President of the Jury was British director Stephen Frears. Twenty two films from twelve countries were selected to compete for the Palme d'Or. The awards were announced on 26 May. ''4 M ...

. It subsequently played the international festival circuit, winning the Grand Prize at the 2007

Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival The Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival is a documentary film festival held biennially in Yamagata, Japan ( ). It was first held in October 1989, which makes it one of the longest running documentary film festivals in the world and ...

References

External links

''Fengming, a Chinese Memoir''
at the Punto de Vista International Documentary Film Festival
''Fengming, a Chinese Memoir''
at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...

''Fengming: A Chinese Memoir'
at the

Vancouver International Film Festival The Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) is an annual film festival held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, for two weeks in late September and early October. The festival is operated by the Greater Vancouver International Film Fest ...

''He Fengming''
at the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films o ...

''He Fengming''
at the Kunsten Festival des Arts * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fengming, A Chinese Memoir 2007 films 2007 documentary films Chinese documentary films Biographical documentary films 2000s Mandarin-language films Films directed by Wang Bing