Presented by China Unofficial Archives, CiLENS and Berlin Contemporary China Network (BCCN).

The late 1980s was a period of intellectual, political and social ferment in China. The questions raised about the country's political system, the environmental costs of its rapid industrialization, and the burdens borne by China's youth still resonate today. This film series — spotlighting four works by the Structure Wave Youth Cinema (SWYC) experimental collective — features several works that are being publicly screened for the first time. Made in the late 1980s to early 1990s, they were largely censored and fell into obscurity, particularly in the wake of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. Seen today, these works recover a long-forgotten phase in Chinese documentary cinema, offering critical insight into the early years of China’s reemergence as a global power.

China Unofficial Archives is a nonprofit digital archive run and funded by members of the Chinese diaspora that preserves and makes public suppressed books, publications, and films. China Unofficial Archives undertook a multi-year effort to digitize and document these films from China's New Documentary Movement. 

Berlin Contemporary China Network seeks to strengthen exchange on contemporary China among Berlin-based academics.

CiLENS is a Berlin-based curatorial platform dedicated to contemporary Sinophone and Asian cinema. Through film screenings, talks, and interdisciplinary programs, CiLENS explores moving image practices as a site of historical inquiry, social reflection, and cross-cultural dialogue.

 

Thurs 12.03. 18:00

只有一个地球 (Only One Earth)
Chen Jue & Jiu Ke, China, 1990, 84 min. Mandarin with English subtitles

Introduced by Dr. Siqi Tu. Followed by a talk with Chen Jue 陈爵 & Kuang Yang 邝杨

A pioneering four-part environmental documentary series produced by CCTV that did not pass censorship and has never screened publicly. Only One Earth approaches ecological crisis through an experimental, essayistic lens shaped by the concerns of reform-era Chinese intellectuals. It confronts the toll of global industrialization using literary, academic, and archival materials alongside a visual style influenced by experimental cinema.

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Thurs 12.03. 20:00

我毕业了 (I Have Graduated)
Shi Jian & Wang Guangli, China, 1992, 92 min. Mandarin with English subtitles

Introduced by Dr. Siqi Tu. Followed by a talk with Shi Jian 时间

An independent documentary produced by filmmakers employed within the state television system. It offers a rare portrait of Beijing’s university students almost three years after June 4^th, making them the final cohort to have experienced the events of 1989. The students candidly reflect on love, sex, careers, emigration, and the political rupture that shaped their emotional lives.

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Fri 13.03 18:00

天安门 (Tiananmen) Parts 1 & 2 

Shi Jian & Chen Jue, China, 1988–1991, Mandarin with English subtitles

Part 1: The Old City, 56 min.
Part 2: Residences, 51 min.

Introduced by Ian Johnson. Followed by a talk with Shi Jian 时间 and Chen Jue 陈爵.

Eight-part documentary by China Central Television (CCTV) filmed in the late 1980s with a planned air date of National Day, October 1, 1989. Canceled after the June 4^th Tiananmen crackdown, co-directors Shi Jian and Chen Jue completed the films independently, but their efforts to screen it were blocked because of the film's human-scale history and pluralism challenges state-led triumphalism. Parts 1 and 2 discuss survivors of the imperial era and its erasure by the state; and everyday survival in China's phase of capitalist-style reform.

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Fri 13. 20:30

天安门 (Tiananmen) Parts 3, 4, & 5 
Shi Jian & Chen Jue, China, 1988–1991, Mandarin with English subtitles

Part 3: On the Street, 52 min.
Part 4: On Stage, 54 min.
Part 5: Going Places, 48 min.

Followed by a talk with Shi Jian 时间 and Chen Jue 陈爵.

Eight-part documentary by China Central Television (CCTV) filmed in the late 1980s with a planned air date of National Day, October 1, 1989. Canceled after the June 4^th Tiananmen crackdown, co-directors Shi Jian and Chen Jue completed the films independently. Parts 3, 4, and 5 discuss the informal economy and marginal lives; the beginnings of avant-garde culture; mobility, travel, and dislocation. 

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Sat 14.03. 14:30

天安门 (Tiananmen) Parts 6, 7, & 8 
Shi Jian & Chen Jue, China, 1988–1991, Mandarin with English subtitles

Part 6: Guest Performers, 48 min.
Part 7: On the Way, 50 min.
Part 8: Memories, 60 min.

Followed by a talk with Chen Jue 陈爵, Shi Jian 时间 & Kuang Yang 邝杨

Eight-part documentary by China Central Television (CCTV) filmed in the late 1980s with a planned air date of National Day, October 1, 1989. Canceled after the June 4^th Tiananmen crackdown, co-directors Shi Jian and Chen Jue completed the films independently. Parts 6, 7, & 8 show intellectuals and artists as witnesses rather than as state-approved authority figures; the country in a state of permanent transition without a stable destination; and the unresolved traumas of the Mao era.

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Sat 14.03. 18:00

Panel: Unseen Histories, Unsettled Memories: China’s New Documentary Cinema (1988–1994) 

Ian Johnson in conversation with Biao Xiang and Sam C. Mac.

A public discussion contextualizing the emergence of China’s New Documentary movement, the SWYC group, and the historical, institutional, and ethical questions raised by the films in the program. 

Sat 14.03. 20:30

工读生 (Reform School Students) 

Wang Zijun and Wang Lan, China, 1994, 159 min. Mandarin with English subtitles. 

Followed by a talk with Biao Xiang.

Filmed with extraordinary access at reform schools in Beijing, it was produced for state television but never aired and has never been unseen publicly until now. Rather than framing the students as problems in need of discipline and correction, the filmmakers show how China’s youth have borne the brunt of the damage caused by the Mao era and postsocialist society.

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Chen Jue (陈爵) spent his career working at China Central Television (CCTV), where he directed documentaries that explored social change during the reform era. From environmental damage to education, migration, and daily work, his films show how political and economic shifts shape ordinary lives in China, sometimes in ways that proved difficult to broadcast.

Ian Johnson, founder, China Unofficial Archives. Johnson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who has written three books on China, including Sparks: China's Unofficial Historians and The Battle for the Future. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Sinology at Leipzig University.

Kuang Yang (邝杨) is a Chinese sociologist trained at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the key intellectual force behind the SWYC group’s documentary work in the late 1980s. He wrote the narration and collaborated on the screenplays for Only One Earth, Tiananmen, and Notes from Beijing, bringing social analysis into public television at a brief moment of institutional openness.

Sam C. Mac is an independent film curator based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was a film and music critic for over 15 years and has written extensively about mainland Chinese film. He now works at Harvard University.

Siqi Tu (屠思齐) is a Chinese sociologist at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, where her research focuses on social inequality, work, and everyday governance in contemporary China. Through long-term fieldwork, she examines how institutional change is experienced at the level of households, communities, and ordinary lives.

Shi Jian (时间) is a documentary filmmaker, editor, and producer who worked for decades within state television, while repeatedly testing its limits. After co-directing works such as Tiananmen (1991) and I Have Graduated, he returned to independent filmmaking following his retirement in 2021, most recently completing My Grandfather Liu Wencai (2023).

Xiang Biao（项飙) is a Chinese anthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, known for his work on migration, mobility, and social change in contemporary China. Through long-term fieldwork and public engagement, he examines how large political and economic systems shape everyday life, aspiration, and uncertainty.

Organizational Team:

Chenlu Ni, student assistant at Berlin Contemporary China Network.

Echo Xuedan Tang, a film curator and cultural worker who founded the Indie Chinese Cinema Week (ICCW) and heads CiLENS.

Ian Johnson, a journalist, author, and researcher involved with the China Unofficial Archives.

Merle Groneweg coordinates the Berlin Contemporary China Network.

Sam C. Mac, former film critic now based at Harvard University who focuses on early independent Chinese film.

Film stills