One day, a Lord of the Rings-obsessed Chinese real estate investor met a little person on the train. This downtrodden man’s openness about his trouble finding a job inspired the businessman to try and help: he created an amusement park where people with dwarfism could live and earn money performing. Though the park has attracted negative attention from groups like Little People of America, DWARVES KINGDOM attempts to capture what the park means...

Each year, hundreds of thousands of Chinese students arrive in the United States to attend college, making up one-third of international students. After arriving, they are often confronted with loneliness and culture-shock. The resulting isolation makes them particularly susceptible to outside influences, and consequently thousands of these young arrivals convert to Christianity. Arriving in North Carolina to study filmmaking, Director Hao Zhang is...

The Chinese government is sponsoring a national campaign on "equal" education. UNDER THE SAME SKY documents school children in the city as well as the country to compare the two educational experiences. UNDER THE SAME SKY had been nominated for best short documentary at the 2017 **Asian Pacific Film Festival**, 2017 **St. Louis International Film Festival**, **Long beach indie Film Festival** and **Los Angeles Chinese Film Festival**. It’s also...

The danger is palpable as maverick activist Ye Haiyan (a.k.a Hooligan Sparrow) and her band of colleagues travel to Hainan Province in southern China to protest the case of six elementary school girls who were sexually abused by their principal. Marked as enemies of the state, the activists are under constant government surveillance and face interrogation, harassment, and imprisonment. Sparrow, who gained notoriety with her advocacy work for sex workers'...

Nominated for Best Documentary by the Director's Guild, Producer's Guild, Independent Spirit Awards, and Gotham Awards, and winner of Best Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival, this film explores the paradoxical pursuit of wealth and progress in China. Loosely structured around the distinct social and economic classes that divide the nation, this extraordinary documentary follows factory workers, middle class consumers and elites as they chase...

Tells the story of the Japanese invasion of Nanking, China in the early days of World War II and focuses on the efforts of a small group of unarmed Westerners who established a Safety Zone where over 200,000 Chinese found refuge. Told through deeply moving interviews with Chinese survivors, archival footage, and chilling testimonies of Japanese soldiers, interwoven with staged readings of the Westerners' letters and diaries.

Takada is an aging Japanese fisherman who has been estranged from his son for many years. When the son is diagnosed with terminal cancer his daughter-in-law, Rie, summons him to the hospital. When his son refuses to see him, Rie gives him a videotape about the work his son was doing on a documentary film in a remote region of China's Yunnan province. Still troubled by the relationship, Takada decides to go to China and complete his son's work in part...

"Filmed over three years on China's railways, J. P. Sniadecki's masterful documentary traces the vast interiors of a country on the move: flesh and metal, clangs and squeals, light and dark, language and gesture. Scores of rail journeys come together into one, capturing the thrills and anxieties of social and technological transformation. THE IRON MINISTRY immerses audiences in fleeting relationships and uneasy encounters between humans and machines...

Embedding herself in the village of Wukan, southern China for several years starting in 2011, first-time documentarian Jill Li witnessed an unprecedented experiment in local democracy. Corrupt officials had illegally sold villagers' land, but the villagers decided to fight back. The documentary is divided into two halves: the first, "Protests," depicts the grassroots activities of Wukan residents as they work to reverse the land sales and gain a substantial...

Documentary Youth spring is driven by the thrum of industrial sewing machines just like the lives of the young garment workers it portrays. Zhili, about 95 miles from Shanghai, is a children's garment industry center. Workers in their teens and early twenties come from neighboring provinces to live in factory dorms and spend their days sewing clothes. Youth spring, a remarkably intimate documentary filmed over 5 years, takes us into these independent...