Rallying near the site of the Petitioners’ Village, now demolished. Zhao Liang spent years documenting petitioners’ efforts.
BEIJING — The documentary film “Petition” by Zhao Liang is considered by many of its viewers to be a fearless work of art. Shot over 12 years, it shows how the authorities muzzle and brutalize Chinese who, following an age-old tradition, travel to Beijing seeking redress for wrongdoing by local officials.
Culture and Control
A Director's Dilemma
Articles in this series will explore the struggle to shape the culture of authoritarian China.
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Culture and Control: At China’s New Museum, History Toes Party Line (April 4, 2011)
Times Topic: China
Shiho Fukada for The New York Times
Zhao Liang in Beijing. He has made several independent documentaries and now a state-sanctioned one, a move that has cost him some friends. “When you’re working in China, there’s a gray area that you have to navigate well.”
In the middle of the shooting, Mr. Zhao came to believe security agents were stalking him. The film was finished, and made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2009, but was immediately banned in China. Officers asked about Mr. Zhao in his hometown. He turned off his cellphone and fled to Tibet for three weeks.
Since then, Mr. Zhao has transformed his relationship with the government. Late last year, Mr. Zhao completed “Together,” a film about discrimination against Chinese with H.I.V. and AIDS that was commissioned by the Ministry of Health. In March, Mr. Zhao dined in Hong Kong with ministry officials before walking the red carpet at a film festival. And in Beijing the next month, he accepted an award in a ceremony broadcast on state TV.
Mr. Zhao’s evolution from a filmmaker hounded by the government to one whom it celebrates offers a window into hard choices that face directors as they try to carve out space for self-expression in China’s authoritarian system. Like Mr. Zhao, many seek to balance their independent visions with their desires to live securely and win recognition.
“When you’re working in China, there’s a gray area that you have to navigate well,” Mr. Zhao, 40, a slim man with a crew cut that is more soldier than auteur, said at his loft home in a Beijing arts district.
The Chinese Communist Party has always viewed film as perhaps the most powerful medium for swaying the opinions of the masses, and used it for decades as a propaganda tool. More recently, the state has identified the film industry as critical for shaping China’s image abroad.
Its levers of control within the industry have grown subtler. Directors who produce unauthorized films that overtly challenge the government can face temporary work bans or more serious harassment. But more often, officials rely on the acquiescence of directors who seek to reach a broad audience. China does not forbid independent filmmaking, but it does control distribution, so filmmakers who want their work to be widely seen end up submitting themselves to a capricious censorship process. Access to a lucrative domestic market is at stake, and government support can help international sales, so censors have become gatekeepers to money and fame.
The drive among prominent directors to expose uncomfortable truths appears to have diminished as the country has grown wealthier. Once-rebellious artists, like the director Zhang Yimou, have been showered with largess after agreeing to work within the system they once disdained.
“Together,” which was submitted to censors, avoids mentioning the government’s long cover-up of H.I.V. and AIDS in China. And Mr. Zhao was asked by officials to make a number of cuts. One Chinese film expert, after watching “Together” in Hong Kong, said Mr. Zhao had “gone to the other side.”
The movie has been shown in Chinese theaters and at a few prestigious international festivals, with official support. Mr. Zhao, like many artists who have chosen this path, sees his decision to work within the system in practical terms.
“I think that a work has to have an audience,” he said. “The meaning of a piece of work has to be acknowledged by other people. It has to influence other people.”
Karin Chien, founder of dGenerate Films, the American distributor of Mr. Zhao’s “Crime and Punishment,” one of his five independent documentaries, said Mr. Zhao’s decision to make “Together” surprised her. But she said the move was similar to the way American directors sometimes jumped between independent and studio productions. “In any industry, there’s an appeal for someone who wants to effect change to work within the system and see if that creates more change,” she said.
Yet Mr. Zhao’s compromises have damaged some of his closest friendships in China. Among those he once counted on for support is Ai Weiwei, the internationally known artist detained for nearly three months this year during a broad crackdown on liberal intellectuals. Mr. Ai publicly attacked Mr. Zhao late last year for acquiescing to the government’s demand that Mr. Zhao boycott an Australian film festival.
Mr. Zhao said that unlike Mr. Ai, he did not directly oppose the party, though his subjects, from oppressed peasants to drug-addicted rock musicians, live on China’s margins.
“China no longer needs a revolution, the kind of total revolution that completely disrupts society,” he said. “The costs are too high.”
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