Wu Wenguang and the Memory Project.
In the Folk Memory Project, China’s first independent documentary maker Wu Wenguang encouraged his young colleagues from Caochangdi Work Station in Beijing to go back to the villages to talk to their grandparents and the other villagers about an event they knew little.
Coming back to Edinburgh after his remarkable Memory Project programme in 2014, Wu Wenguang is bringing us an one day workshop with lectures, screenings and discussions. This event is free but booking is required via the Eventbrite link on our website.
Independent documentary film projects dealing with history have recently multiplied in China. While all seek to shed new light on personal experiences of the Mao era, they vary greatly in form, method, and scale. Launched in 2010 by Wu Wenguang at.
Wu Wenguang and the Folk Memory Project Friday 31 May 2019, 2pm-7pm Venue: 50 George Square, G.04 Screening Room. This event is free, but booking is essential. To book, please click HERE. Knocking on Memory’s Door with the Video Camera. A handful of people took video cameras and went back to their respective villages.
This project is an experiment in the creation of folk memory archives. Wu Wenguang was born in Southwestern China’s Yunnan province in 1956. After graduating from high school in 1974, Wu was sent to the countryside, where he worked as a farmer for four years. Between 1978 and 1982, he studied Chinese Literature at Yunnan University.
Wu Wenguang and the three young filmmakers Zou Xueping, Zhang Mengqi and Shu Qiao visited Lund University, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) and University of Copenhagen in April 2013 where they presented Caochangdi Workstation’s Folk Memory Documentary Project.
Highlights of a conversation with Wu Wenguan, renowned Chinese independent documentary filmmaker and co-founder of the Caochangdi Workstation in Beijing. Recorded during a visit he made to Edinburgh in 2014 to screen films from the Folk Memory Project, presented by the Confucius Institute for Scotland.