Background – This series was produced by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and consisted of films shot in many different parts of China, with ethnic minorities of very different cultural traditions. They were shot on 35mm black and white film and the production values were generally very high.
Source : Through the efforts of Karsten Krüger, Rolf Husmann and others, the series was transferred onto DVD with English translations by the IWF at Göttingen and made available for distribution in the West in 1998. With the closure of the IWF in 2015, this material was transferred to the German National Science Library at Hannover (TIB) and will become available again once the situation with rights over the films has been clarified.
In the meantime, selection of the films in the series is available in the Film Library of the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester and there may be similar collections elsewhere.
For the moment, the only access via the web known to The Silent Time Machine is via a film by Jenny Chio about the series, made while the author was a graduate student at Goldsmiths College, London, and which contains extracts from a number of the films. This can be accessed on Vimeo here
Film Content – The films in the Chinese Historical Ethnographic Film Series invariably emphasised the benefits that the communities portrayed had gained from the ascent to power of the Communist Party by virtue of the fact that it had put an end to a variety of abuses from which these communities had suffered, be at the hands of feudal landlords, corrupt officials of the Kuomintang regime, European colonial powers or Japanese invaders. They also tended to deride the efficacy of the traditional religious practices shown in the films, emphasising that modern medicine was the only way to cure illness. Much of the action was evidently staged, and most films were covered with execrable music.
Even so, notwithstanding these features, these films offer a remarkable ethnographic account of life as it was lived in ethnic minority communities in the decade or so after the Communist Party had come to power but before the Cultural Revolution.
Jenny Chio’s film available on Vimeo contains extracts from the following original films –
- The Kawa (1958) – dir. Tan Bibo
- The Li (1958) – dir. Feng Jin
- The Ewenki on the banks of the Argun River (1959) – dir. Lu Guangtian, Zu Yaozhi and Zhang Dafeng
- The Kucong (1960) – dir. Yang Guanghai
- The Dulong People (1960-61) – dir. Yang Guanghai
- The Jingpo (1960-62) – dir. Qui Xiafei, Li Peijiang and Chen Heyi
- The Serf System in the Town of Shahliq (1960, 1962) – dir. Hou Fangrou, Liu Boquian, Liu Zhixiao and Wang Genyi
- The Oroqen (1963) – dir. Yang Guanghai, Qui Pu, Zhao Fuxing and Lu Guangtian. This is one of the most substantial films in the series and is described at greater length here
- The ‘Azhu’ Marriage System of the Naxi (Moso) from Yongming (1965) – dir. Yang Guanghai, Zhan Chengxu and Qiu Pu
- The Hunting and Fishing Life of the Hezhe(n) (1965) – dir. Lori Zhongbo, You Zhixian and Qiu Pu
- Naxi Art and Culture in Lijiang (1966) – dir. Qiu Pu, Yang Guanghai and Zhan Chengxu
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