In 2019, a documentary "In the Human World" with the theme of "New Oriental Classroom Rape and Murder Case" was born. A film crew of young school students began filming in 2018, with the victim's mother, Aunt Li, as the main subject, documenting her helplessness and struggle. "Behind this persistence is the pain that cannot be released, the pain of loving the daughter, the pain of the individual being lonely and helpless."
The creators organized dozens of screenings across the country last year, hoping to use the screening of documentaries to combat forgetting, so that everyone can know this tired and strong mother and understand the story behind the case.
In the director's post-screening exchange, you can feel the young man's original intention to create a documentary, and the thinking behind his lens, it is rare that he also draws a lot of nutrients from past Chinese independent documentaries, which makes people feel the inheritance of an image power.
At 1 p.m. on November 8, "In the World" will have a screening in Beijing, please read the original article, support.
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Cornices
All the fragility and tenacity fell on this woman, and the extreme pain and anxiety fell on this mother. It, at least outside the events, makes us feel that the appalling events that once took place will not be forgotten in this way, once again approaching the good and evil of human nature.
Meng Lang
Documentaries are ultimately about the practice of physicalism, especially for independent documentaries, and attention itself is a force. What is valuable is that the creators and the events are present together, and many clips truly show the struggle, helplessness and perseverance of ordinary Chinese people in the face of a thorny social environment, which can be said to be a kind of humanitarian support for the subject.
Chaoyang District wife Mu Cong
The most valuable thing is the "presence" of the lens, the most infuriating is the "absence" of the source of evil, the evil of the system, the evil of human nature, the evil of the environment, a work that is very heart-wrenching to see, even if the form is very thin, the material organization is also a bit chaotic, but I think at this moment all the evaluations that are separated from the "people" themselves and entangled in skills are meaningless. Admire Aunt Li, who has endured such great grievances and sufferings, but still endures to remain rational and strong, hoping that she will be all right.
On October 17th, Bump Mirror DOC and Photo Pen jointly held a public welfare screening of "In the World". We invited director Wen Junhao to have an in-depth post-screening exchange with the audience of the DOC member of Bump Mirror. The following is the content of the post-screening communication:
Believing in the power of documentaries can bring hope
| "In the World" was discussed after the screening
Moderator: Feng Chenqi
Proofreader: Long Tianyin Wang Lu
Edit: Zhang Laodong
Q&A
"I think it's more promising"
Audience 1: I wonder what was the original intention to film this event?
Wen Junhao: In my sophomore year, our teacher said that you can do some long documentary projects, similar to independent documentaries, with an event for a long time. At that time, I was on Zhihu, when my aunt and a volunteer organization called "Blue Hand Knot" helped her send some common denunciations that are now common on Weibo, that is, I needed helpers to help, journalists, and others. We belonged to the others, and we asked my aunt if we could make a documentary, and we slowly followed for a while. After a long time, my aunt trusted us more and slowly started to do it.
Audience 2: What is the opening mobile phone (shooting) paragraph?
Wen Junhao: Actually, we started shooting in February 2018, when we were shooting in 19 years, we showed the finished film to my aunt, and my aunt said that she just came to Beijing with a box of materials, and there are some video materials here, you can use them if you want to use them. She may watch our films, trust us more, think it's okay, and then we have some very valuable information that can structure a very complete timeline.
Audience 3: After you made this film, did you feel more hopeful, or more desperate?
Wen Junhao: I think there is more hope. Because of this film, when I watch it now, I think it represents a lot of hope, first of all, this incident is now resolved smoothly. And at the beginning it was from one media to many media, and we paid attention to the documentary, but now it has been almost solved, and then last year I did some screenings.
This case was lucky, and so was our documentary. There are many similar incidents in China, and there are actually many documentaries that have been made into documentaries, but even fewer have been seen. Unfortunately, whether it is an event or a film, there are many, so the more I look at it now, the more I feel that this is a very fortunate existence, and I think it is still more and more hopeful. Including the direction of the whole film, from the beginning to the end, she wants to do these things, which are also solved and are being solved in a good way. So I think there's a hope in the meaning of this film, including its ending.
"The true meaning of life is often much deeper than expected"
AUDIENCE 4: You should have graduated by now and are you still working on documentaries?
Wen Junhao: I just graduated this year. If I did a documentary, I didn't think about it. Because I think it's too difficult to do this kind of [independent] documentary, but if you do ordinary, institutional or normal documentary, it's not the same as this, it's not very interesting. To make another film like this, my state and opportunity may not be there, so I think I want to do it now, but I haven't been able to make a very good documentary in the near future.
AUDIENCE 5: What kind of field are you focusing on?
Wen Junhao: An independent Documentary in China. In terms of subject matter, I was thinking some time ago, since the birth of the documentary, its relationship with sociology and anthropology is very, very close, including Chinese independent documentaries, including this style of film, I think the reason why it has appeared in China since 2000 (in large numbers), it is very similar to the earliest independent documentary in the United States in the eighties and nineties, as a social movement, so I think this kind of social documentary I think is more interesting.
For example, "Prisoner", I think it has reached an extreme in sociality or sociology; documentaries go in the direction of human beings, and films such as "Dancing God" and "The Shaman of the Blind Country" may be another extreme. I prefer sociological and anthropological (video) stuff, and I don't like documentaries as pure art or pure films, because I think that documentaries are a weaker form of expression as pure art or pure films.
In terms of shooting style, there is a film called "Florida Paradise", I think it is very interesting, it is made by a documentary filmmaker, I think this style is close to the structure of a documentary of feature films, but it is a feature film itself, so I think this style is relatively new.
AUDIENCE 6: Did you communicate with the other party about a shooting, and what did they think?
Wen Junhao: When shooting (the other side), some of the material was not used in the film because of various considerations and protections, and the film (perspective) conformed to what we thought was a more objective way.
AUDIENCE 7: I saw some slow motion in the film, and some music, and I wonder why you added slow motion in some places, and where would you want to add music?
Wen Junhao: The structure of the film is obvious, we chose to take the aunt and her emotions as the main line, and added everything to the scene and incidental. If this structure, music first has a transition role, for example, from April to October 18 there is a music, for example, from Dongying to Beijing, from Beijing to Dongying, it has several pieces of music, the rest of the music is a kind of emotional release, more want to make the film into a rhythmic feature film feeling, so when people feel tense, it is tense, when you feel that we can soothe down, if you want to express some emotions, add some music. According to our teacher's words, I am not very restrained, but I think I am OK, I am still more restrained.
One of the more pure points of this film is that it doesn't have a posing shot from beginning to end, and there aren't too many design shots. People see that different reporters are actually coming and going, and we set up a machine to go up there and shoot it like that. There are also some words that the aunt said involuntarily during the meal, and half of it we thought it was very interesting, so we used the machine to shoot it. So I think this way of shooting is more natural on the whole, or it is a relatively old way of recording. That's actually the case, so it's going to have that effect.
Audience 8: My question has a little to do with the structure, I can feel the change of emotion when I watch, it is a special release process before getting the relic, after getting the relic, I can see that the aunt turns more to her own heart, I am more curious, this is your choice in the editing and shooting, or can you slowly find more material when shooting, and follow the aunt to shoot more things?
Wen Junhao: There may be two aspects that you just talked about. Although there are some structures to go back and forth, it is mainly a timeline structure. In fact, for such a lawsuit, or the state of the aunt, from 16 years to the present, it cannot be said that there have been too many changes, but from the small details are slowly getting better, or from the end of the second trial, the end of the criminal case, the aunt will return to her hometown, and for a long time the heart has also been put down, and indeed she can start her new life, and then bury her daughter.
In fact, we saw this film, we first took the relic, the aunt in order to bury her daughter, this matter waited until the end of everything. Because the school was not allowed to enter, it was interesting that the cases were all over, and a burial was from the beginning to the end, which was such a result. In fact, I think that after the burial, the aunt's heart has also calmed down, and our feeling is that the documentary can be temporarily ended, so we use such an ending, to put it bluntly, it is a faint relief.
AUDIENCE 9: I would like to ask who gave the Chinese and English names of this film? Is it something you're trying to express? In particular, I saw the English name at the back: Heaen Can Wait.
Wen Junhao: "In the human world" was originally a WeChat name that her aunt used, and she was called "in the human world". I thought this WeChat name was very interesting, and then I thought about the name for half a day and used it. "Heaven Can Wait" is our other director, Huang Jingkun, who said that this was originally a song title for Michael Jackson, which I later learned about, but the name is particularly consistent with this one.
Another thing is that when waiting for the end of the second trial, the earliest with us, contacted the aunt's "blue hand knot" volunteer Jian Wei, he sent a know-it-all called "heaven can be expected, etc., the world is also worth it", that is, the daughter of heaven waited for a fair verdict, the aunt has been running for her daughter all these years is also the meaning of her life, everything has a result, so it is worth it. So he may have read this too, thinking of such an English as "Heaven can wait".
Audience 10: Just now someone asked about the recording in the car before the opening came out, you said that the information provided by the aunt, is she providing audio or video?
Wen Junhao: What she provides is a video. Auntie she has this consciousness, from the beginning to the end of this matter is solved because the aunt herself, she knows how to do in many cases, in order to find a reasonable, can solve some problems in the complex of these dangers, so she herself has this consciousness, know to let the people around her to help her record these things, including you can see where she goes with a mobile phone, she has changed a lot of mobile phones, she has such a consciousness of forensics. In fact, this is very precious, if she can teach us something.
Audience 11: I noticed that in the process of negotiating with the school and the police, there has always been only one woman, is this always the case during filming, or is it deliberately done in post-editing?
Wen Junhao: She is really the only woman, and her relatives help her drive, which is a strong backing, or so it seems. At a time when there was no media intervention in 16 years, it was much darker than what was presented, and we can't record it, and she has been in a state of being a person since the earliest media intervention.
In the earliest days, many things were not thought about much, it was cut or done according to a feeling, at that time it was still a sophomore and a junior (student), many things were not understood, but there was a direction, there was a feeling, it should be done on the image. Later, I felt that this was a more real state, and there was not much special consciousness in it.
Audience 12: You also mentioned just now that the overall presentation of this film is relatively restrained, so in the actual shooting process, for example, the aunt has been crying when describing these things to you, or she has gone to the security guards to prevent her from entering, in the face of these moments, have you always been able to participate in this matter as a relatively calm outsider?
Wen Junhao: No, I think the presentation of this film may be an ancient shooting angle called "flies on the wall", but it is very warm overall, why? For example, a film like "Florida Paradise", the documentary has developed to the present, its authorship or its subjectivity is actually an inevitable thing, including the existence of the camera and the intervention of the camera, it will change a lot of things, such as 16 years, even the media does not exist, needless to say that the camera, at that time is a completely different scene, so as long as the camera is present, it will make the event develop in a relatively good direction, although the editing of this film does not make people aware of the presence of the camera. Including photography, photography invited a lot of volunteers and acquaintances, this film is actually done by many people. Like we saw, these photographs are also very rigid, right? When the other party says, "You put down the machine," you hold the machine, and when you are not restrained, you will say something behind the machine, and these will be cut off, so it will present such a state. I think it is better to deal with one's own subjectivity than to completely remove one's own subjectivity and leave some subjective contradictions.
I think the first problem that you have to solve first when making a documentary is an ethical question that you have a clear conscience, that is, don't think about that, I want to take a picture of a vulture eating a child and win an award, but why didn't I save him. You don't leave such a question, when you shoot, you first have to be a person, or have a clear conscience, and then the film.
The screening of "In the Human World" in Guangzhou ended
Audience 13: Want to ask the next money. Following the meaning of the documentary you just talked about, the market of documentaries, your film may be funded by the school in the fundraising process, in the future, if you are very optimistic about this significance, to reflect your value judgment, to bring about so-called changes, including to the judiciary, to the parties, to the society of some resonance, then this piece of a market, what do you think is worth being promoted, what is the future development trend?
Wen Junhao: Independent documentaries have always been in such a state, and I think since the absence of the China Independent Film Exhibition, documentaries have fallen into a state of even worse. The American studio system, which I don't remember in the early decades, commented that documentaries are a bad thing because they pose a threat to the industry and life, and the content it records is something that is not suitable for everyone to see. That is to say, I think that at the beginning of the birth of the film, the documentary had such a position, which itself had a lot to do with its sociality, and if you engaged in something purely artistic, then it did not pose a threat. But documentary has something social, or something anthropological, and you feel that it's very powerful, and its power exceeds that of art itself, and that's a sense of its intersection, and I think it can play its greatest value.
Many of the documentaries I watched before are very shocking, but the market, in the end, is still, such as sociological things, it is contradictory to social development, including anthropological things, so many things are in a marginal state, in fact, it can only be a small marginal existence. If you push a niche thing to the public, such as "China on the Tip of the Tongue", it is a completely different documentary, and you still haven't pushed this kind of documentary to the public, because it is actually not too able to push it down.
Ecology, the ecology of independent music may be slightly better than that of independent films, and the independent ecology can actually slowly become better, but independence is still an independent state.
After the screening in Hangzhou, the audience folded this thousand paper cranes carrying wishes
AUDIENCE 14: To put it bluntly, would you like to collect money? Whose money is charged?
Wen Junhao: I don't think documentaries have much to do with money. Even if you take this road in the future, there is no very intuitive relationship with money. For example, in such a film, we buy a machine ourselves, and we can shoot with the machine, in fact, there are a lot of mobile phone materials and other materials in the film. The movie was actually not very related to capital at the beginning, and now it is very important that the mass film market will feel that it is particularly linked to capital, but you can watch some independent, Chinese independent films when they first got up, it was really not because of money, it was because I had machines, so I made it.
Now it's actually the same, for example, if I want to make another film like this, is it really because we want money? In fact, no, for example, if you see such a case again, then why don't you fly over and stay with her for a while, do you really not have this money? In fact, I think it is mainly my psychological state, my ability to bear, and whether I can keep up with this year and a half of energy.
Like now that I'm graduating, I'm going to find it hard for me to do a documentary like this again. During the filming stage, we were still in class (there was no way to get to the scene), at that time I asked The Volunteer Jian Wei to help us send it, saying that we had a documentary filming, in Beijing, Auntie was experiencing some things, and there were no volunteers in Beijing who could help us shoot for a day, and they really came to shoot.
In fact, a lot of production methods are incredible, I think the most important point is people and people themselves, in fact, now everyone's living standards are enough for everyone to do such a documentary, but the most difficult point is whether you have such a time cost and mentality to complete.
First you have to make sure that your life is stable enough and that your thinking is enough. The root cause is still in people, that's what it means. When I give up, no matter how rich or no money you have, in fact, it can't be done. If you think about it enough, let's say I do this, I feel that part of it is bigger than me, more than some of my expressions, more than some of my ideas, and it keeps driving me to do it, and I feel like this is something I especially want to do. When you have this drive, everything is not a problem, and when this drive is gone, no amount of anything can make such a film.
Audience 15: You mentioned some views on the social, humanistic and artistic nature of documentaries before, but Zhao Liang's "Sorrowful Monster" is to integrate an artistic expression, like performance art, into his documentary, what do you think?
Wen Junhao: The sociality of "Sorrowful Monster" I think there is, and there are some anthropological things, that is, a hell, and then there is a roar, it is some ancient, cultural things in it, its main meaning is still in the inner Mongolia land, or the land and the people, which is a very important point. If you shoot one yelling at something else there, it doesn't necessarily have the land and the people to look good.
For this stage. If a documentary is artistic, it actually relies on performance art itself. If we take the medium of documentary, and we add video art to performance art, its imagery can be more advanced; if we do, it has room to rise. If you are at the point of convergence of sociology and anthropology, I think it is a better state, and I think that China needs this kind of thing very much at the moment.
Audience 16: We can see that Auntie has worked very hard, but in fact, we see that she is very suffocated, she is dealing with these agencies, the police, and the security room, I want to know if you have encountered any coercive measures as a recorder in the process of filming?
Wen Junhao: This film is presented like this, I think it is not counted, there are some small things, that is not called a thing. There are many people who are much more forced than this measure, so I am very lucky. There are many people who help from start to finish from start to finish.
Audience 17: This film was originally 16 years of material, and then directly transferred to the second trial of 18 years, will you feel that there will be some jumps in the middle, or a little regret? Because the whole process of the first trial will be missing in the middle, 17 years and a whole year of material.
Wen Junhao: At least my state, my stage, we filmed it, and presented it like this, such content can be put to everyone, I think there is no regret.
Whether you want to say that things can be done better, for any movie, there is no extreme. This film is mainly based on the emotions we see in the structure of this film, it actually omits some of the content of the side lines, the content of the case is actually omitted, including some other very hardcore content. The main thing left is the aunt's emotional line, that is, from this state to a new state, a state of slowly coming out, and it is also an expectation of our aunt and ourselves, that is, to present such a thing.
In terms of presentation, in fact, there is no need for first-instance and second-instance things, because her state, 16 years and 18 years are actually the same. And if you want to shoot this kind of subject, most of the content you must not see, for example, you are at the door, for example, the reception for half an hour, we can see, in the inside chat for 5 hours, that can not be seen. So it will always be like this.
Audience 18: Have you been in contact with your aunt recently? How is she doing?
Wen Junhao: The last time I contacted my aunt, I think her mentality has also changed a little, and it is also what we hope to be. Because the case is probably over, now it is a civil lawsuit or civil compensation. But you have to say that the real letting go or the real relief, for a person, she may not be able to do it for a lifetime, because many things have been forcibly imprinted on her, have surpassed her personally.
Audience 19: You made such a documentary in your sophomore year, and now that I'm a student, I wanted to ask how to make sure that you have time to learn about it and keep the event intact while keeping the lessons going.
Wen Junhao: Like when we were shooting, we were looking for Jian Weidang as a volunteer, and he helped us find some people and shoot this film. Many of my classmates signed up for a bunch of electives in their junior year and senior year, and I said why don't you make a documentary, because I think many of my classmates actually have a selection of topics, and they do a good job, but then they cut it out very generally, why? It is because he filmed some programs of campus life, filmed for a long time, and there was no time to do it.
Another thing I think is motivation. When you do this, you have a clear motivation to feel that this is worth doing, should be done, and I am interested in, I must make it. In fact, it is still the problem just now, or look at people, if you have enough ideas to make it, first of all, it shows that this topic is very important to you, it shows that you want to do it well, and if you have this thing, you can be like this.
AUDIENCE 20: Seeing that there are assistant directors and some other people, are you a group?
Wen Junhao: No, the first time I was with Huang Jingkun, and Jian Wei helped find some people, we opened several topic selection courses, sophomore to junior year, every year there will be different people to follow this film, but also found a brother from the film school, and a choreographer student of the China Youth Political College, they also helped us do a lot of things. How to say it, anyway, each has its own way, I am definitely relatively wild, not too systematic.
"On Earth" crew
AUDIENCE 21: I would like to ask, this mother has always shown a state of resistance in the film, is there a state of wanting to give up or feeling that it cannot be achieved, there is no hope?
Wen Junhao: First of all, the mother has a special obsession and special feelings for her child, which leads to her motivation for her daughter. The reason why the father or other relatives did not have the motivation for the child as she did was because she had this relationship with her daughter, she thought enough.
The first step is that first of all, you have enough motivation to persevere and fight these lawsuits, which is actually quite difficult, because in fact, for many people, the overall probability of failure is relatively large. I think the first one is this love of the aunt herself, she also said that in the whole action she is a state of numbness and overwhelm, as for what she thinks and what her body is going to do, in fact, many things she is unconscious, or did not think much, she knows that I must do, this feeling. So her spirit is already behind the action, or she puts herself after everything.
The second point is also a more valuable point, of course, it is also related to the nature of this matter, that is, the way she herself took, in fact, she is still a person who is still very good at handling things, even in a very collapsed state, she also knows how to deal with various institutions and get her own way. Who we're in touch with now, who we're in touch with, just for our daughter, that's right.
About the director
Wen Junhao/Huang Jingkun
Both graduated from the School of Television of Communication University of China in 2016 majoring in network and new media. Currently freelancing. Love images. "On Earth" was the first attempt to record feature films.
About "On Earth"
Director: Wen Junhao / Huang Jingkun
Genre: Documentary
Country of Production: Chinese mainland
Language: Mandarin Chinese
Runtime: 97 minutes
Synopsis:
In 2016, Aunt Li's 16-year-old daughter was killed by classmates at The ChangpingWai Chinese School in Beijing. In February 2018, she came to Beijing to run for her daughter's burial. She found that her daughter's important relics were missing at the school, and she was turned away by the school. Throughout the sentencing of the second instance, during the day she would repeat her experiences and pains to various people over and over again. At night, I often wake up in nightmares and can't sleep. On the brink of mental and physical collapse, the daughter of heaven became the driving force behind her to live on earth.