Zhang Mengqi

自画像和三个女人

Zhang Mengqi

The 23-year-old director, fresh out of university, lives at home with her mother and grandmother. She rebels against them but also tries to understand the generation gap between them. While she gets angry and questions their expectations of her as a woman (i.e., to marry and have children), she also gropes for the meaning of real love. Along with her mother and grandmother, the three women wring out their loves and hates with explosive strength. The director in her performance piece uses her own body to project the images of her mother, turning her lost loves into springboards, practically jumping out of the screen so she can shout with all her might.

自画像：47公里童话

Zhang Mengqi

The newest instalment in a series set in a small village in a mountainous region in China. In the winter marking ten years since the director began filming, she tries to get a new building constructed in the village. The girls, who had thus far been the subjects of her films, take up the camera themselves, and begin recording scenes of the village.

自画像：47公里斯芬克斯

Zhang Mengqi

In the Chinese countryside, an old woman tells the story of her deceased son, while a little girl paints her dreams on the walls of the house. A personal and attentive perspective on the territory, which articulates the memory of a disappearing generation and the hopes of the one to come.

纪念碑

Wu Wenguang

Wu Wenguang, Zhang Mengqi

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".

洛洛的恐惧

Luo Luo

Wu Wenguang, Zhang Mengqi

Luo Luo’s intense fear of Covid-19 keeps her in the house during the pandemic. She listens to her father relate their family history, and spends time on Zoom with fellow Folk Memory Project members Wu Wenguang and Zhang Mengqi.

自画像：生于47公里

Zhang Mengqi

Between 1959 and 1961, more than 35 million people starved to death because of Mao’s Great Leap Forward policies. To avoid censorship in China, this painful period is now euphemistically referred to as the “Three Years of Natural Disasters.” This courageous oral history, directed by Zhang Mengqi, tells the story from the point of view of her grandfather’s village, to which she returns every winter to interview survivors. Central is moving voice-overs from a grandmother who details harrowing pregnancies and lonely births during the Great Famine and her granddaughter, a migrant worker. In this agricultural village, the landscape is stark yet beautiful with plenty of room for contemplation. When a hand appears in front of the camera, Zhang transitions into a delightfully playful territory, incorporating a uniquely participatory experience that extends beyond the screen.

Self-Portrait: Building the Bridge at 47KM

Zhang Mengqi

Zhang Mengqi

The fifth title in Zhang Mengqi's Self-Portrait film series.

Self Portrait: At 47 Km

Zhang Mengqi

The young filmmaker returns to her village to interview the elderly on the Chinese famine of 1958-60. But the villagers' replies direct her back to the memory of her own family.

Self-Portrait: Dancing at 47KM

Zhang Mengqi

After Self-Portrait: At 47 Km, Zhang Mengqi pursues her contributions to the Folk Memory Project, relentlessly questioning the survivors of the 1959-61 famine in her village, “47 kilometres” (47 km from Suizhou, in Hebei Province).

自画像：47公里的窗

Zhang Mengqi

The village in the mountains of China that the director has long made the subject of her camera. The traces of memories and landscapes that fade away before one’s eyes. An 85-year-old man is recounting the story of half of his life, while a young girl draws portraits of the village elderly.