5th Annual Reel China Documentaries Biennial Series

The Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University holds their biennial Reel China Documentaries Series.

The Fall of Womenland
Dir. He Xiaodan
46mins
2009 English Subtitles

The Fall of Womenland
A documentary on the unique sexual culture of the Mosuo people – a small minority situated in the South-West of China, and one of the last remaining matriarchal societies in the world. Without a formal marriage contract, the Mosuo traditionally build relationships based on free love. But can the sexual liberty and power of the Mosuo women survive as modern Chinese society encroaches their ancestral land? Follow Bima, a young Mosuo woman, and learn of her reality and of the dangers that threaten her inherited way of life.

Wheat Harvest
Dir. Xu Tong
98 mins
2008 English Subtitles

Wheat Harvest
In June, the wheat tips are beginning to turn yellow. A young woman comes back from Beijing to her hometown in Hebei, to find her father lying in bed with an IV and her mother out at the market. It appears that this is the way life always is; this is normal, nothing is out of the ordinary. Going back a few months, we see a filthy and chaotic side street in Beijing’s eastern suburbs. In a nameless, unlit ‘beauty parlor’, this country girl of barely 20 years shows us a corner of her life as a prostitute. The film revolves around the time of the harvest, documenting one person’s dual lives and struggles, how one person copes on her own troubles in the face of it all.