Documentaries come into spotlight via global cooperation

Chinese documentaries have evolved to the stage of international co-production by learning from the concepts and techniques of overseas productions. Such global cooperation is a process through which the entrenched thoughts can be broken, and regional and cultural boundaries crossed in search of common aesthetic expression.

During their international cooperation, Chinese documentary filmmakers are likely to understand more about how Western documentaries present ideologies and issues through a set of rigorous, scientific and systematic narrative patterns, as well as how to cater to the aesthetic tastes and habits of most viewers.

The international cooperation seems to have yielded feasible solutions for the problems faced by Chinese documentary filmmakers. From Wild China, a co-production of China Television Media and BBC distributed in 2008, to major international cooperation initiated by the CCTV's Documentary Channel, such productions have offered many ways through which Chinese documentary makers can overcome the problems they had been facing in presenting China's real image to the world.

For example, China From Above, with its international team of director, scriptwriter and cinematographer, not only takes a closer look at the globally advanced documentary filmmaking concepts, but also serves as a direct inspiration for Chinese documentary filmmakers.

Such cooperation gives us a chance to learn how our Western counterparts handle the expression of themes and human interest stories, grand narratives and detailed presentations, human connotations and use of high technology. It also links historical traditions with modern development, and helps us figure out how to present the missions of families and countries in Chinese documentaries.

Documentaries made under international cooperation also show how Western productions construct images, portray the significance of "the cultural other", and recode our understanding of cultures different from our own. They thus help us eliminate the differences in communication and focus on shared meaning.

The author is a professor at the School of Television and Journalism, Communication University of China.

(China Daily 10/31/2015 page8)