"The Memory Project and New Voices in Chinese Documentary" at Pitt, October 31 and November 1.

The University of Pittsburgh will host "The Memory Project and New Voices in Chinese Documentary" on October 31 and November 1. The Film Studies Program provides a summary of the touring documentary exhibition:

WU Wenguang, one of the founding figures in Chinese independent documentary, brings three young filmmakers from China to present their collective work, “the Memory Project.” The project is based at Coachangdi Workstation in Beijing. From there, young filmmakers fanned out to return to family villages and their own pasts, real and imagined, to inquire about The Great Famine of 1959-61 — a disaster of whose memories have been actively abandoned by the state. Aiming to create a “folk memory archive,” the project, which combines documentary films, oral history records, and live performances, presents an alternative narrative of Chinese history than the one written in official textbooks. As these young filmmakers search for the distant memory from an old generation that is still living in rural poverty, their encounter with the past reveals as much about the wish for memory as of memory itself and of the interesting role of film in such projects of retrieval.

The Department of English has a schedule for the two-day event. On October 31, two documentaries by Zhang Mengqi will be shown from 7:00 pm: Self-Portrait and Three Women and Self-Portrait: At 47 KM. On November 1, from 1:00 pm: Huamulin, Boy Xiaoqiang and Children's Village. A discussion with the filmmakers and with Pitt faculty members will begin at 4:10. All events will be held in 224 Langley Hall (map), and all are free and open to the public.