Chinese human rights activist Dr. Xu Zhiyong, twice imprisoned for his longstanding advocacy of civil society in China, was sentenced to 14 years in prison by the Chinese government in April 2023. The documentary by independent director Lao Hu Miao was filmed over a four-year period, beginning with the seizure of the Public League Legal Research Center, which Xu Zhiyong helped found in 2009, and ending with Xu's first prison sentence in 2014.

This film is a five-part documentary by the filmmaker and feminist scholar Ai Xiaoming on the persecution of inmates at the Jiabiangou labor camp in Jiuquan, Gansu province, where more than 2,000 people died. The documentary includes interviews with the few remaining survivors and documents efforts to commemorate the dead. The director interviewed survivors of Jiabiangou and the children of the victims and listened to their stories about the past; she also found former correctional officers and their descendants to understand the causes of labor camps and the Great Famine from different angles. Shot by Ai and a team of volunteers, the film presents the conflict between the preservation and destruction of memory.

Hu Jie narrates the life of Lin Zhao, a Christian dissident who was condemned as a Rightist in the late 1950s and executed during the Cultural Revolution. Prior to becoming a mentcritic of the government, Lin Zhao was an ardent believer of communism. She demonstrated talent in writing and speaking as a star student in Peking University. However, after criticizing the government in 1957 during the Hundred Flowers Campaign, she was cast as anti-revolutionary. Despite the government’s attempts to silence her, Lin Zhao continued to speak and write publicly, including contributing two epic poems to Spark, an underground student-run journal. In 1960, she was arrested, and despite being released briefly in 1962, spent the rest of her life behind bars, under extremely poor living conditions. Nevertheless, she continued to write in prison, sometimes with her blood. In 1968, at the age of 36, she was executed by a firing squad. In this documentary, Hu Jie showcases many of Lin Zhao’s surviving writings and poetry. These pieces often contain criticisms of the communist regime, as well as commentary on policy issues pertaining to labor and land reform. In making this film, Hu Jie traveled around China to interview friends and associates of Lin Zhao, who knew her as a student, activist, or prisoner. This documentary includes excerpts from interviews with them, which inform us about Lin Zhao’s personality and motivations. This documentary has contributed to a widespread revival of interest in Lin Zhao, who had almost become a forgotten figure until the film’s appearance.

Wukan is a village in Luwei City, under the jurisdiction of Shanwei City, Guangdong Province. From 2011 to 2016, Wukan villagers have continued to fight to protect their land and fight for villagers' rights. Facing strong pressure from the government, some even paid with their lives. In the process, the villagers had elected their own villagers' committee by one person, one vote to practice their democratic rights. Although the protests were eventually suppressed, the impact was far-reaching. Ai Xiaoming rushed to the scene at the beginning of the Wukan incident and left this precious record.

The documentary "Ram" was filmed by independent director Tiger Temple in 2016 and is available here in a revised version by the author in 2021. The film documents a real-life incident that took place in Xi'an during the "1983 crackdown". The encounter of the artist Gong Yang (real name Li Xiaoming), the main character of the documentary, is quite representative. It reflects the cruelty and absurdity of the "1983 Crackdown" political campaign launched under the direction of Deng Xiaoping.

How can China build a real civil society? Since 2010, independent director Tiger Temple sat for a series of interviews with scholars and civil society actors.

How can China build a true civil society? Since 2010, independent director Tiger Temple has conducted a series of interviews with scholars and civil society participants.

South side Street near Tiananmen Square in Beijing has long been a gathering place for some homeless people as well as petitioners. The director became involved in the homeless relief charity in 2007, and continued to follow the film, which the director finished editing eight years later. The film was selected for the 12th China Independent Film Festival Documentary Competition.

In 1959, in the desolate Lingyuan area in the western part of Liaoning Province, a group of intellectual rightists from the Shenyang University arrived. There, they were to labor and be reformed alongside criminal prisoners in the prison, while digging mines to build railroads. How did the Communist Party reform the intellectuals? What kind of encounters did these rightist intellectuals go through? Hu Jie's camera restores this history.

As one of China's foremost feminist activists and thinkers, Ai was interviewed by the Global Feminisms Project at the University of Michigan. In this interview, Ai talks about her upbringing as well as about the current state of feminism in China and its outlook.

How can China build a real civil society? Since 2010, independent director Tiger Temple sat for a series of interviews with scholars and civil society actors.

How can China build a true civil society? Since 2010, independent director Tiger Temple has conducted a series of interviews with scholars and civil society participants.

In the spring of 2022, a wave of COVID-19 exploded in Shanghai. Under the policy of “Zero COVID,” 24 million residents were put under forced lockdown. Filmmakers and reporters used their phones, televisions, the internet, and other materials to capture scenes of lockdown and disputes between officials and civilians in Shanghai. Producers of this short film titled <i>The Memo</i> believe that it is necessary to record this historic episode in order to prevent our memories from fading away. The production team, which was founded in 2020, strives to create works about the lower classes of Chinese society. <i>The Memo</i> was nominated for the Clermont-Féron Short Film Festival.

On August 5, 1966, Bian Zhongyun, a 50-year-old vice principal of the Girls High School affiliated with Beijing Normal University, was beaten to death. The murder was by some of her students, a group of female Red Guards from the school. Bian was the first educator to be killed in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution. The night Bian was killed, Deng Xiaoping's two daughters, Deng Nan and Deng Rong, found Bian's husband and told him that they could only say that Bian died of high blood pressure due to illness, but not that Bian was killed. In the end, no one was criminally prosecuted. The documentary revolves around interviews conducted with Bian’s husband, Wang Jingyao. Wang had documented the body of Bian in the aftermath of her death with a camera, and preserved her belongings. In this documentary, Wang shows these items to Hu Jie, and discusses with him the events leading up to Bian’s death. At the end of the documentary, Hu Jie displays the names of 201 teachers who were killed in Beijing in August 1966. This film portrays the trauma of those affected personally by the Cultural Revolution, and serves as a reminder of the scale of deaths and tragedy during the most violent periods of the Cultural Revolution. This film is widely regarded as one of Hu Jie's most famous for its portrayal of Bian's husband, Wang Jingyao, and his efforts to document his wife's murder.

The author of this book, Luo Pinghan, is a native of Anhua County, Hunan Province. He graduated from the Party History Department of Renmin University of China and served as director and professor of the Party History Teaching and Research Department of the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. This book was published by Fujian People's Publishing House in 2003. With Mao Zedong's affirmation, the system of people's communes was rapidly promoted across the country in 1958. At that time, the people's commune was both a production organization and a grassroots political power. Its rise and fanatical development are closely related to the subsequent Great Famine.  As a scholar within the system, the author’s view of history also belongs to orthodox ideology. Although this book is narrated from the official ideology of the CCP, it uses rich and detailed historical materials to comprehensively and systematically introduce the history of the People's Communes, giving it a reference value for a comprehensive understanding of this movement.

Published on January, 2022, “Ten Days in Xi’an” is a log of Chinese independent journalist Jiang Xue’s daily experiences under COVID-19 lockdown, posted onto WeChat’s social media platform. In this piece, Jiang depicts the crises and challenges faced by Xi’an residents under lockdown, such as the lack of access to medical resources. “Ten Days in Xi’an” was viewed by millions of Chinese users on social media platforms when it was posted, and received comments and support from thousands of Chinese citizens. It was later translated into English by Andréa Worden and published on Probe International virtually. You can find the translated article in the PDF below, or through this link: <https://journal.probeinternational.org/2022/08/22/ten-days-in-xian/>.

Lin Zhao, formerly known as Peng Lingzhao, a native of Suzhou, was admitted to the journalism department of Peking University in 1954, but was classified as a Rightist in 1957. She was arrested and imprisoned in October 1960 because of her involvement with the underground magazine <i>Spark</i>. In 1965, Lin Zhao was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment for "counter-revolutionary crimes." On April 29, 1968, she was sentenced to death and executed on the same day at the age of 36. This book is a collection of more than sixty articles written in memory of Lin Zhao.

The Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4, 1989 and the subsequent mass arrests and purges created tens of thousands of June Fourth victims. Among them were June Fourth victims who fell into a pool of blood, the June Fourth disabled who were shot, the families of the June Fourth victims and the severely disabled, the June Fourth prisoners of conscience who were sentenced to imprisonment or re-education-through-labor, and the June Fourth victims who were subjected to other political persecution. On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of June Fourth, as part of Chinese civil society's efforts to recover the historical truth and rebuild historical memory, this report gives a basic description of the suffering of the June Fourth victims and their arduous journey over the past 20 years. It also analyzes the systemic factors that have contributed to the victims' suffering and proposes corresponding recommendations on how to change their living conditions.

This collection of diary entries by Wuhan-based filmmaker and activist Ai Xiaoming showcases her life during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, from February to March 2020. In these diary entries, Ai shares the daily challenges which many Chinese people grappled with, as well as their hopes and questions for the government and Chinese society at large. Her diary also examines problems regarding the expanding powers of the Chinese government. The first entry of Ai’s diary was published in English by the New Left Review, which can be found here: https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii122/articles/xiaoming-ai-wuhan-diary.

This book is a collection of diary entries written in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic by Fang Fang, a Chinese writer and advocate of the working poor in China. In these diary entries, Fang Fang documents the various daily difficulties faced by her and other Wuhan residents from January to March 2020. In this book, she also ponders the implications of official policies with regard to the pandemic and the way in which the public and the government have responded to the outbreak of COVID-19. These entries tell us about the hopes and fears of the people of Wuhan during the early stage of COVID-19, and adds to our understanding of public opinion and government policies in China in the 2020s. The diaries were published in Chinese, and have also been translated by Michael Berry into English and published by Harper Collins Publishers. You can purchase the English version of the book using <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/wuhan-diary-fang-fangmichael-berry?variant=40153409749026">this link</a> .