Wu Wenguang

A documentary following five young artists from around China, who travelled to Beijing in the 1980s to work as freelancers, exploring their lives, careers, and what aspirations they may have for the future.

“Action 2024” is a snapshot of independent filmmaker Wu Wenguang's experiences during the year 2024, which he spent in a village called Shijiawan growing rice, corn, and vegetables, and raising chickens, ducks, and geese. What sets this work apart from Wu's previous films is that it was not conceived as a project first, leading to a film; instead, it emerged organically from the filmmaker's life working in the village—farming and raising poultry—during which time he had attached to his body a miniature camera. This process prioritized living and farming first, followed by documentation, and ultimately resulted in an 18-hour film which follows the chronological order of occurrences and documentation, and is structured into five chapters: “June,” “July,” “August,” “September,” and “October.” Screened online over 5 consecutive Fridays from January 31 to February 28, 2025.

Thirty years later, Chuang encounters a past love in Zhongshan. As they wander the aging streets, true archival footage from his youth bleeds into fiction—a haunting journey through midlife melancholy and a city’s faded glory.

A year after he made Bumming in Beijing, Wu Wenguang visited his main figures in Austria, France, Italy and the USA. The desire to escape everything, which was the most compelling feeling while they were still living in Beijing, has meanwhile faded and they are now confronted with the dynamics of emigration. Wu asks what it means to feels deserted by one's own country and how it is when one reacts by deserting it in turn.

More preoccupied with "history" than Wu's other works, My Time in the Red Guards is a record of his fascination with the missed moment, Mao's Cultural Revolution. In 1966, the Red Guards ironically represented the official avant-garde, a movement carried forward by youth determined to become heroes of the Revolution. Wu interviews people who had joined the Red Guards as high schoolers, most now successful professionals, some Party members. The miscalculations and cruelties of this extreme cultural campaign are spread out before us, detailed by personal recollection and further illustrated by old agit-prop newsreels. Misgivings and fond remembrance vie for position as the interviewees seem to confuse the nostalgia of youthful action with the excesses of historical fact.

The one directorial feature by Ning Dai, sister of 5th generation filmmaker Ning Ying and wife of 6th generation filmmaker Zhang Yuan. It follows a chaotic period in November of 1993, when production suddenly halted on Zhang Yuan's TV film adaptation of a popular novel, Chicken Feathers, after the Chinese Film Bureau announced that Zhang could no longer direct the film due to submitting his previous independent feature, 1992's Beijing Bastards, to a film festival in Japan without receiving the proper authorization to do so. Ning's documentary features anguished meetings between the Chicken Feather's production crew as they debate replacing Zhang with another director, along with testimonials on the state of censorship in Chinese independent cinema of the early '90s from Wu Wenguang, Tang Danian, He Jianjun, Cui Jian, and others.

A documentary following five young artists from around China, who travelled to Beijing in the 1980s to work as freelancers, exploring their lives, careers, and what aspirations they may have for the future.

A documentary following five young artists from around China, who travelled to Beijing in the 1980s to work as freelancers, exploring their lives, careers, and what aspirations they may have for the future.

“Action 2024” is a snapshot of independent filmmaker Wu Wenguang's experiences during the year 2024, which he spent in a village called Shijiawan growing rice, corn, and vegetables, and raising chickens, ducks, and geese. What sets this work apart from Wu's previous films is that it was not conceived as a project first, leading to a film; instead, it emerged organically from the filmmaker's life working in the village—farming and raising poultry—during which time he had attached to his body a miniature camera. This process prioritized living and farming first, followed by documentation, and ultimately resulted in an 18-hour film which follows the chronological order of occurrences and documentation, and is structured into five chapters: “June,” “July,” “August,” “September,” and “October.” Screened online over 5 consecutive Fridays from January 31 to February 28, 2025.

A year after he made Bumming in Beijing, Wu Wenguang visited his main figures in Austria, France, Italy and the USA. The desire to escape everything, which was the most compelling feeling while they were still living in Beijing, has meanwhile faded and they are now confronted with the dynamics of emigration. Wu asks what it means to feels deserted by one's own country and how it is when one reacts by deserting it in turn.

More preoccupied with "history" than Wu's other works, My Time in the Red Guards is a record of his fascination with the missed moment, Mao's Cultural Revolution. In 1966, the Red Guards ironically represented the official avant-garde, a movement carried forward by youth determined to become heroes of the Revolution. Wu interviews people who had joined the Red Guards as high schoolers, most now successful professionals, some Party members. The miscalculations and cruelties of this extreme cultural campaign are spread out before us, detailed by personal recollection and further illustrated by old agit-prop newsreels. Misgivings and fond remembrance vie for position as the interviewees seem to confuse the nostalgia of youthful action with the excesses of historical fact.

More preoccupied with "history" than Wu's other works, My Time in the Red Guards is a record of his fascination with the missed moment, Mao's Cultural Revolution. In 1966, the Red Guards ironically represented the official avant-garde, a movement carried forward by youth determined to become heroes of the Revolution. Wu interviews people who had joined the Red Guards as high schoolers, most now successful professionals, some Party members. The miscalculations and cruelties of this extreme cultural campaign are spread out before us, detailed by personal recollection and further illustrated by old agit-prop newsreels. Misgivings and fond remembrance vie for position as the interviewees seem to confuse the nostalgia of youthful action with the excesses of historical fact.

This film is the second segment of my “Autobiography Series.” From the moment when my mother disclosed a long kept secret, my birth was accompanied by many struggles for my mother. Those “struggles” include: during pregnancy, “should this child be kept,” to the painful struggles in the delivery process. Struggles have also accompanied since I was born, becoming part of my life.

The first part of Wu Wenguang's Autobiography film series.

The film is about the life of farmer workers in Beijing, including search the “outlander” how to been in Beijing.

No synopsis available yet.

This documentary shows how different young people try to realize their dreams to become famous through the film industry.

This documentary shows how different young people try to realize their dreams to become famous through the film industry.

Luo Bing went back to Luo village, where he was born and grew up, and interviewed older people to know what happened during famine from 1959-1961. His neighbor, Ren Dingqi wrote a memoir, but he didn't really show it to Luo Bing. Luo Bing knew the history of this village much more after getting close to Ren Dingqi every time

Zou Xueping continues to interview old people in her village, this time with the help of local children. They start collecting names and money to erect a memorial for the victims of the famine.

The film is about the first two years in the Memory Project. All images was from my angle with my camera.

Originally produced in 1988 and 1989, but blocked from being released after June 4th. A large-scale Chinese documentary series that spanned 100s of interviews in nearly 20 provinces, cities, and autonomous regions. It was completed in early 1989, and each of its parts run roughly 50 minutes. The titles of each part: Family, Fertility, Farmers, Youth, Minority, Women, Artists, Kung Fu, and Mission. The series, according to production notes written by screenwriter Zhu Xiaoyang, "reflects the life and fate of contemporary Chinese people, their behaviors, concepts, and customs; explores the influence of traditional culture and foreign cultures on modern Chinese people; and describes the joy and hard work, hardship, and perseverance, as well as exploration and yearning, of the Chinese people." Youth, Kung Fu, Artists, and Minority are the only surviving parts of this series.

A journey of the filmmaker, Wu Wenguang, somewhere in China, and his view of public life in the cities and villagers. He meets some of his friends, a gay man in Beijing, and a lesbian couple in Shanghai.

A documentary film following the daily life of director's grandfather in the winter of 2011. At 80 years old with five sons, the grandfather insists to live by himself in the rural area of Hebei

A documentary following the filmmaker, Shu Qiao, who went back to his hometown of Shuangjing, a rural village in Hunan Province. He interviewed the elders in his village who lived through the Great Famine during 1959-1961. His main purpose was to gather the names of those who suffered and died during the famine and to ask the village to donate money for erecting a monument in their name

Treatment is one of two films Wu Wenguang released in 2010 after a 5-year absence. The film deals with Wu’s memories of his deceased mother and his search for emotional healing.

A documentary of the Yuanda Song and Dance Tent Show, a wandering troupe from the countryside of Henan Province that is on the road all four seasons of the year.

A documentary of the Yuanda Song and Dance Tent Show, a wandering troupe from the countryside of Henan Province that is on the road all four seasons of the year.

A documentary following the filmmaker, Li Xinmin, who went back to her hometown and interviewed the elders in her village who lived through the Great Famine during 1959- 1961. The residents of this village Huamulin are still isolated. At the same time, the film reflects the loneliness in the real life of village's old people

A documentary following the filmmaker, Wang Hai'an, who went back to his hometown of Zhanggao Cun, a rural village in Shandong Province. He interviewed the elders in his village who lived through the Great Famine during 1959- 1961. His main purpose was to gather the names of those who suffered and died during the famine and to ask the village to donate money for erecting a monument in their name, but the idea was rejected by the villagers

No synopsis available yet.

No synopsis available yet.

Jia Zhitan investigates the One Strike-Three Anti campaign in his village.

During Luo Bing's second return to his village, Ren Dingqi finally accepts to showhim his memoirs.

My father was a landowner’s son and an ex-Kuomintang Air Force pilot, who remained in mainland China after 1949. For survival, he tried to transform himself from a man of the ‘old society’ to a man of the ‘new society’. As his son, I started investigating his ‘history before 1949’, which he had kept away from me. This film documents the process of my investigation over twenty years.

Wu Wenguang revisits the artist Gao Bo more than 20 years after their earlier encounters which were documented in "Bumming in Beijing" (1990) and "At Home in the World" (1995).

Li Xinmin's first return to her village in Yunnan province. Alongside interviews with some village elders, the film reveals the filmmaker's family and their views on her film project.

Wu Wenguang's comment: This film looks at my relationship with the village filmmakers— or I might say, how we met and got entangled. The film’s material comes from video recordings of the Villager Documentary Project from 2005-2009. It is about how these complete strangers and I became tied, bound, and rolled up together. And it’s about the phrase I keep wanting to shout to them,“Stand your ground! None of you run from this!”

Filmmakers Wu Wenguang and Jian Yi trained 10 villagers from across China to make films documenting electoral processes in their home villages. Pursuing the ideal that anyone can become a documentary filmmaker, this project sparked a new model of Chinese participatory documentary, with community members depicting their own lives. The resulting works—surprisingly humorous, and filled with their own local flavor—vividly reveal the realities of village life and democracy in action.

Edited together from materials taken from Caochangdi performances and activities between 2012-2013 and Wu Wenguang's own body camera record, this film can be regarded as a kind of "story follow-up" version of "Because of Hunger". In short, it is a kind of "remembrance".

It is the director's second documentary of "my village" series since she got involved with the "Folk Memory Project". She returned to her hometown to shoot footage, recording the realities she encountered in her search for memories. Her biggest question is: after experiencing the disaster of the tragic famine fifty years ago, the villagers now are not short of food, and are living a better life than before, but is the spirit of this village still starving?

The third part in Wu Wenguang's Autobiography film series.