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Glory of Documentary Screening Section

Glory of Documentary Screening Section is curated by West Lake International Documentary Festival for the purpose of cultivating audience and focusing on excellent documentaries at home and abroad. The purpose is to focus on the screening of outstanding international documentaries and Q&A after the screenings, presenting the academic vision, cultivate documentary audience, arouse discussions of cutting-edge topics, and help documentaries infiltrate into people's life, so as to create a documentary art feast for the public. Based on different perspectives and motivations, this section has various themes. It presents in the way of "screening -- post-screening Q&A", presenting the spirit of "exploring the ontology of documentary, setting up youth experiment, holding people's heart high and creating oriental temperament".

2020
2019
2018
2020 IDF Screenings
The Whale from Lorino
  • Country/Area of Production： Poland
  • Language of Dialogue： Russian
  • Runtime： 59 min
  • Director： Maciej Cuske
  • Type of Work： Short Documentary
  • Producer： Mikolaj Pokromski
Introduction: The Whale From Lorino is a film about the descendants of the oldest of Siberian tribes on the far away land of Chukotka. For them, the yearly hunt for the endangered whale is not only a tradition, but a necessity for surviving winter in a fragile place devastated by Soviet influence. The clash of two disappearing worlds; Chukchis civilisa…
Preview
The Past Is Always New, The Future Is Always Nostalgic Photographer Daido Moriyama
  • Country/Area of Production： Japan
  • Language of Dialogue： Japanese
  • Runtime： 112min
  • Director： Gen IWAMA
  • Type of Work： 纪录长片
  • Producer： Gen IWAMA
Introduction: Daido Moriyama, age 81, is still active as an artist. He is probably the most prominent and the last charismatic figure in the world of photography. He received numerous awards worldwide including the Infinity Award for Lifetime Achievement from the International Center of Photography in New York (2012) and Hasselblad Foundation Internati…
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The Past Is Always New, The Future Is Always Nostalgic Photographer Daido Moriyama
  • Country/Area of Production： Japan
  • Language of Dialogue： Japanese
  • Runtime： 112min
  • Director： Gen IWAMA
  • Type of Work： 纪录长片
  • Producer： Gen IWAMA
Introduction: Daido Moriyama, age 81, is still active as an artist. He is probably the most prominent and the last charismatic figure in the world of photography. He received numerous awards worldwide including the Infinity Award for Lifetime Achievement from the International Center of Photography in New York (2012) and Hasselblad Foundation Internati…
Preview
Immortal
  • Country/Area of Production： Estonia, Latvia
  • Language of Dialogue： Russian
  • Runtime： 61 min
  • Director： Ksenia Okhapkina
  • Type of Work： Feature-Length Documentary
  • Producer： Riho Västrik
Introduction: The film, set in a north-western industrial town in Russia, reveals the mechanism that entices human beings to voluntarily become a resource to the state. Can a person ever be free in a totalitarian society, where intricate and obscure structures take control of their mind-set from an early age? The film looks at the making of a Russian c…
Preview
The Whale from Lorino
  • Country/Area of Production： Poland
  • Language of Dialogue： Russian
  • Runtime： 59 min
  • Director： Maciej Cuske
  • Type of Work： Short Documentary
  • Producer： Mikolaj Pokromski
Introduction: The Whale From Lorino is a film about the descendants of the oldest of Siberian tribes on the far away land of Chukotka. For them, the yearly hunt for the endangered whale is not only a tradition, but a necessity for surviving winter in a fragile place devastated by Soviet influence. The clash of two disappearing worlds; Chukchis civilisa…
Preview
The Arms of Seven Men
  • Country/Area of Production： China
  • Language of Dialogue： Chinese
  • Runtime： 81 min
  • Director： JIN Xingzheng
  • Type of Work： Feature-Length Documentary
  • Producer： ZHANG Chao,WANG Shixiao,LIAN Mingyan
Introduction:  The documentary is about seven armless artists with their unique artistic creating career and their self-reliant lives. Subjectively, the documentary carries forward artists spirit of self-improvement and perseverance. Objectively, they have overcome lives' adversities and done wonders under extremely tough circumstances, exhibiting huma…
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QI Jiguang
  • Country/Area of Production： China
  • Language of Dialogue： Chinese
  • Runtime： 25 min
  • Director： WANG Xin,MAO Libo
  • Type of Work： Documentary Series（5 Episodes）
  • Producer： WANG Xin
Introduction: Humanistic documentary QI Jiguang from Zhejiang Satellite TV—digging the profound historical importance of heroic figures. The documentary focuses on the anti-Japanese invasion experience of QI Jiguang, an eminent general in Ming Dynasty, in the south-eastern coast of China over 400 years ago. It is consisted of 5 episodes, Rising in the …
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Fanghua Eternal Heart Unchanged
  • Country/Area of Production： China
  • Language of Dialogue： Chinese
  • Runtime： 19 min
  • Director： DING Zhigang, JIN Liyong
  • Type of Work： Short Documentary
  • Producer： DING Zhigang
Introduction: Ye Annan, 65 years old, Communist Party member, retired cadres of Shaoxing City Cultural Center, a lifelong dedication to the art of dance. He has created and coached nearly 2,000 dance works. The "mother dance team", which was organized in early years, was famous in Shaoxing. In 2005, Ye Annan, who had made a vow of "I was born for dance…
Preview
The Mysterious Elves of Gangnam - Amji's Salamander
  • Country/Area of Production： China
  • Language of Dialogue： Chinese
  • Runtime： 13min
  • Director： WANG Bo
  • Type of Work： Short Documentary
  • Producer： ZHAO Jie
Introduction: Amji's Salamanderis a critically endangered species endemic to China. The director spent 2 years on this film, documenting the breeding process of this species as well as related conservation and research efforts.
Preview
Wind of Change
  • Country/Area of Production： China
  • Language of Dialogue： Chinese
  • Runtime： 148 min
  • Director： CHEN Huaxiang
  • Type of Work： Feature-Length Documentary
  • Producer： CHEN Huaxiang
Introduction: With a dream of producing her first feature film, self-funded writer-director Li Dongmei and her temporary crew start the shoot in a small town called Futian in Chongqing. Despite all the psychological preparations, they are still facing constant unexpected setbacks. The film presents Li Dongmei’s creation of her debut film.
Preview
The Winter Vacation
  • Country/Area of Production： China
  • Language of Dialogue： Mongolian
  • Runtime： 85 min
  • Director： LIU Xiangchen
  • Type of Work： Feature-Length Documentary
  • Producer： LIU Xiangchen
Introduction: Eerdengulu is studying at Bayin College of Technology at Korla in Xinjiang. Eerden Qiaolu is a student at a primary school at Hejing County in Xinjiang. The two brothers returned to their home located in a remote valley in Tianshan Mountains which is a part of the Bayanbulak Steppe where they spent the winter vocation for almost three mon…
Preview
Into the Fire
  • Country/Area of Production： UK
  • Language of Dialogue： Yazidi
  • Runtime： 24 min
  • Director： Orlando von Einsiedel
  • Type of Work： Short Documentary
  • Producer： Harri Grace
Introduction: In an area of Iraq destroyed by ISIS, Hana Khider leads an all-female team of Yazidi deminers in their attempts to clear the land of mines. Their job involves painstakingly searching for booby traps in bombed out buildings and fields, where one wrong move means certain death.
Preview
The Tough
  • Country/Area of Production： Poland
  • Language of Dialogue： N/A
  • Runtime： 14 min
  • Director： Marcin Polar
  • Type of Work： Short Documentary
  • Producer： Michał Hudzikowski
Introduction: The Tough carries a lot of meanings: defiant, vicious, resistant, relentless, strong, resilient, cold, hard. The film’s protagonist had a good reason to choose this name for his discovery – a place he has to face where he tangibly learns about all those characteristics, and also literally the hard way. It stirs his imagination while abrup…
Preview
Baracoa
  • Country/Area of Production： Switzerland, USA, Spain
  • Language of Dialogue： Spanish (Cuba)
  • Runtime： 90 min
  • Director： Pablo Briones
  • Type of Work： Feature-Length Documentary
  • Producer： Benjamin Poumey
Introduction: When hot summer comes to their tiny village in the Cuban countryside, Leonel and Antuán intimately explore their universe far from adults. With a considerable difference in age, their unique friendship is torn between games and fights, conversations about everyday life, existentialist questions, simple pleasures and boredom. As his older …
Preview
Ballad of Roaming Spirits
  • Country/Area of Production： China
  • Language of Dialogue： Chinese
  • Runtime： 85 min
  • Director： LI Xiaofeng, JIA Kai
  • Type of Work： Feature-Length Documentary
  • Producer： JIA Kai, LI Xiaofeng
Introduction: There is more dirt than there are stones in Northern Shaanxi. A temple built with stones stands on the plateau. Yajun, the temple guardian, makes a living as a peasant. Without warning, he abandons his family and travels around the arid landscape. It is said that he becomes an itinerant doctor and saves people from illness. However, he hi…
Preview
Coby and Stephen Are in Love
  • Country/Area of Production： USA, China
  • Language of Dialogue： English
  • Runtime： 30 min
  • Director： Luka Yuanyuan YANG, Carlo Nasisse
  • Type of Work： Short Documentary
  • Producer： Luka Yuanyuan YANG, Carlo Nasisse
Introduction: Coby Yee, a 92 year old retired nightclub dancer and icon from San Francisco Chinatown, and Stephen King, an experimental filmmaker 20 years her junior have found an unlikely love in each other through matching outfits, dance, and art. Stephen is intensely interested in images, film, and memory and manages an eccentric archive of Coby’s i…
Preview
Sing Me a Lullaby
  • Country/Area of Production： Canada, Taiwan China
  • Language of Dialogue： English, Mandarin
  • Runtime： 28 min
  • Director： Tiffany Hsiung
  • Type of Work： Short Documentary
  • Producer： Tiffany Hsiung, Priscilla Galvaz
Introduction: Ru-Wen was separated from her parents at the age of five. Forty years later, she is still unable to connect the fragmented pieces of her childhood. For Ru Wen, survival meant burying her own curiosity to know why she had been abandoned by her birth parents in Taiwan – a curiosity that grew into a silent longing over time. That is, until h…
Preview
Ninosca
  • Country/Area of Production： Sweden
  • Language of Dialogue： Spanish,Swedish
  • Runtime： 104 min
  • Director： Torbiörnsson
  • Type of Work： Feature-Length Documentary
  • Producer： Stina Gardell
Introduction: For forty years, director Peter Torbjörnsson has been filming life in the village of San Fernando/Nicaragua. What began as a portrait of a village became the story of Ninosca, a woman who broke from her abusive husband and set off into the world with the dream of a better life in Europe and in search of a way to support her family. Yet, h…
Preview
Invisibles, Click Workers
  • Country/Area of Production： France
  • Language of Dialogue： French, English, Spanish
  • Runtime： 20 min
  • Director： Henri Poulain
  • Type of Work： Documentary Series（4 Episodes）
  • Producer： Hervé Jacquet
Introduction: In our pockets, in our hands, our smartphones have become the undeniable companion to our contemporary lives. Social media, online orders, multiple research tasks... How can we live without these apps that pace our day-to-day lives and facilitate our existence ? Facebook, Google, Amazon, Deliveroo, Uber Eats, Airbnb, Booking, Tinder... Al…
Preview
My Legacy
  • Country/Area of Production： China
  • Language of Dialogue： Chinese
  • Runtime： 45 min
  • Director： Team of My Legacy
  • Type of Work： Documentary Series（8 Episodes）
  • Producer： ZHU lingqing,LIN Jingjing,WANG yingtong
Introduction: "My legacy" is a series of character documentaries produced by Tencent News. The program invites ethnic Chinese representatives in different fields——Yuan Longping, Shu Qi, Chen Qigang, Kris Wu, Zhang Xiaogang, Deng Yaping, Wang Jingchun, Zhang Weili, to conduct long-term documentary shooting, trying its best to be close to their daily liv…
Preview
Masterclass
  • Country/Area of Production： China
  • Language of Dialogue： Chinese
  • Runtime： 22 min
  • Director： WANG Yu, WANG Yijingran
  • Type of Work： Documentary series（6 Episodes）
  • Producer： WAN Ruo, Vikram Channa, ZHU Lexian, YUAN Xi
Introduction: Masterclass uses a contemporary perspective to re-discover Chinese traditional culture, with each episode showcasing an icon of popular culture, paralleled by the traditional skills of a master artisan. With the guidance of an artisan mentor, two seemingly unrelated areas of ancient and modern culture come together to find a common spirit…
Preview
The Hidden Kingdoms of China
  • Country/Area of Production： USA, China
  • Language of Dialogue： Chinese
  • Runtime： 44 min
  • Director： Brian Leith
  • Type of Work： Documentary Series（5 Episodes）
  • Producer： Bo ZHANG
Introduction: China’s vast landscapes and secretive animals have rarely been seen - until now. From its highest mountains and plateaus, to its thickest jungles and bamboo forests, The Hidden Kingdoms of China will reveal the wild side to China that few knew existed. Pandas, Tibetan Foxes in their hunting mode, the elusive Snow Leopard, Golden Snub-nose…
Preview
Kids on the Silk Road
  • Country/Area of Production： Denmark
  • Language of Dialogue： (Variety of local languages) Chinese, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Burmese, Uzbek
  • Runtime： 23 min
  • Director： Camilla Magid, Jens Pedersen, Kaspar Astrup Schröder, Simon Lereng Wilmont
  • Type of Work： Documentary Series（5 Episodes）
  • Producer： Maria Stevnbak Westergren
Introduction: Each episode tells the story of a teenager’s pursuit of his/her passion, ambition and dream, be it a Chinese boy playing the lead role as the Monkey King in one of China’s most important theaters, an Azerbaijani village boy learning to train pigeons in the oil fields, a Georgian girl teaching a group of disabled children traditional danci…
Preview
Into the Fire
  • Country/Area of Production： UK
  • Language of Dialogue： Yazidi
  • Runtime： 24 min
  • Director： Orlando von Einsiedel
  • Type of Work： Short Documentary
  • Producer： Harri Grace
Introduction: In an area of Iraq destroyed by ISIS, Hana Khider leads an all-female team of Yazidi deminers in their attempts to clear the land of mines. Their job involves painstakingly searching for booby traps in bombed out buildings and fields, where one wrong move means certain death.
Preview
The Tough
  • Country/Area of Production： Poland
  • Language of Dialogue： N/A
  • Runtime： 14 min
  • Director： Marcin Polar
  • Type of Work： Short Documentary
  • Producer： Michał Hudzikowski
Introduction: The Tough carries a lot of meanings: defiant, vicious, resistant, relentless, strong, resilient, cold, hard. The film’s protagonist had a good reason to choose this name for his discovery – a place he has to face where he tangibly learns about all those characteristics, and also literally the hard way. It stirs his imagination while abrup…
Preview
Coby and Stephen Are in Love
  • Country/Area of Production： USA, China
  • Language of Dialogue： English
  • Runtime： 30 min
  • Director： Luka Yuanyuan YANG, Carlo Nasisse
  • Type of Work： Short Documentary
  • Producer： Luka Yuanyuan YANG, Carlo Nasisse
Introduction: Coby Yee, a 92 year old retired nightclub dancer and icon from San Francisco Chinatown, and Stephen King, an experimental filmmaker 20 years her junior have found an unlikely love in each other through matching outfits, dance, and art. Stephen is intensely interested in images, film, and memory and manages an eccentric archive of Coby’s i…
Preview
Sing Me a Lullaby
  • Country/Area of Production： Canada, Taiwan China
  • Language of Dialogue： English, Mandarin
  • Runtime： 28 min
  • Director： Tiffany Hsiung
  • Type of Work： Short Documentary
  • Producer： Tiffany Hsiung, Priscilla Galvaz
Introduction: Ru-Wen was separated from her parents at the age of five. Forty years later, she is still unable to connect the fragmented pieces of her childhood. For Ru Wen, survival meant burying her own curiosity to know why she had been abandoned by her birth parents in Taiwan – a curiosity that grew into a silent longing over time. That is, until h…
Preview
Bamboo Theatre
  • Country/Area of Production： Hong Kong China
  • Language of Dialogue： Chinese (Cantonese)
  • Runtime： 76 min
  • Director： CHEUK Cheung
  • Type of Work： Feature-Length Documentary
  • Producer： Louis Yu
Introduction: While permanent theatres are commonly built in most cosmopolitan modern cites, Hong Kong preserves a unique theatrical architecture, a Chinese tradition that has lasted more than a century – Bamboo Theatre. It is a makeshift, open-air and bamboo shed theatre, which is built and fixed by plastic straps, without any heavy-duty materials. Du…
Preview
Love Child
  • Country/Area of Production： Denmark
  • Language of Dialogue： Farsi, Azerbaijani, Turkish, English
  • Runtime： 110 min
  • Director： Eva Mulvad
  • Type of Work： Feature-Length Documentary
  • Producer： Sigrid Jonsson Dyekjær
Introduction: LOVE CHILD offers a poignant portrait of Leila and Sahand, an Iranian couple who, outlawed for their love, flee the country with their four-year-old son, Mani. In Tehran, they committed the crime of having a secret affair while being married to other people and were forbidden to get divorced. Neither could they acknowledge that Mani was a…
Preview
Walchensee Forever
  • Country/Area of Production： Germany
  • Language of Dialogue： German, English
  • Runtime： 110 min
  • Director： Janna Ji Wonders
  • Type of Work： Feature-Length Documentary
  • Producer： Martin Heisler
Introduction: In the family saga, director embarks on a voyage of discovery spanning a century: she takes us from the family café at the Bavarian Walchensee to San Francisco to the infamous "Summer of Love". It is a timeless family story about the search for identity, self-realization, love, pain, psychosis, birth, death and a film about the cycle of l…
Preview
Baracoa
  • Country/Area of Production： Switzerland, USA, Spain
  • Language of Dialogue： Spanish (Cuba)
  • Runtime： 90 min
  • Director： Pablo Briones
  • Type of Work： Feature-Length Documentary
  • Producer： Benjamin Poumey
Introduction: When hot summer comes to their tiny village in the Cuban countryside, Leonel and Antuán intimately explore their universe far from adults. With a considerable difference in age, their unique friendship is torn between games and fights, conversations about everyday life, existentialist questions, simple pleasures and boredom. As his older …
Preview
Babenco - Tell Me When I Die
  • Country/Area of Production： Brazil
  • Language of Dialogue： English, Italian
  • Runtime： 75 min
  • Director： Bárbara Paz
  • Type of Work： Feature-Length Documentary
  • Producer： Bárbara Paz
Introduction: “I have already lived my death and now all that is left is to make a film about it.” So said the filmmaker Hector Babenco to Bárbara Paz when he realized he did not have much time left. She accepted the challenge to fulfill the last wish of her late partner: to be the main protagonist in his own death. In this tender immersion into the li…
Preview
Ninosca
  • Country/Area of Production： Sweden
  • Language of Dialogue： Spanish,Swedish
  • Runtime： 104 min
  • Director： Torbiörnsson
  • Type of Work： Feature-Length Documentary
  • Producer： Stina Gardell
Introduction: For forty years, director Peter Torbjörnsson has been filming life in the village of San Fernando/Nicaragua. What began as a portrait of a village became the story of Ninosca, a woman who broke from her abusive husband and set off into the world with the dream of a better life in Europe and in search of a way to support her family. Yet, h…
Preview
Ballad of Roaming Spirits
  • Country/Area of Production： China
  • Language of Dialogue： Chinese
  • Runtime： 85 min
  • Director： LI Xiaofeng, JIA Kai
  • Type of Work： Feature-Length Documentary
  • Producer： JIA Kai, LI Xiaofeng
Introduction: There is more dirt than there are stones in Northern Shaanxi. A temple built with stones stands on the plateau. Yajun, the temple guardian, makes a living as a peasant. Without warning, he abandons his family and travels around the arid landscape. It is said that he becomes an itinerant doctor and saves people from illness. However, he hi…
Preview
Chinese Village Head
  • Country/Area of Production： China
  • Language of Dialogue： Chinese
  • Runtime： 77min
  • Director： ZHANG Mimi
  • Type of Work： Feature-Length Documentary
  • Producer： LI Kan
Introduction: The documentary Panjiawan Village records progress and problems of the development of China’s Targeted Poverty Alleviation in Panjiawan Village, Baimiaohe Town, Luotian County, Huanggang City, Hubei Province in 2018. Focusing on the work of Pan Daosheng, Party Branch Secretary of Panjiawan Village, the documentary represents the daily lif…
Preview
Half Grave Half Beast
  • Country/Area of Production： China
  • Language of Dialogue： Chinese
  • Runtime： 71min
  • Director： SHEN Jie
  • Type of Work： Feature-Length Documentary
  • Producer： SHEN Jie
Introduction: I finally climbed out of the "cave house" to offer a sacrifice—Home—Hometown—the Chinese Incense Burning Acestral Land—An array of half grave half beast faces that follow a collective and tragic fate. I was tossed into this "half grave half beast" world, which has continously demanded my "sacrifice" through "sacrifice". The attack on drea…
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Without You, Without Me
  • Country/Area of Production： France,Russia
  • Language of Dialogue： French,Russian,Tatar
  • Runtime： 20
  • Director： Adèle Shaykhulova
  • Type of Work： Short Documentary
  • Producer： Adèle Shaykhulova
Introduction: When I was a little girl, I left Russia for France with my mother, leaving my father and the rest of my family. As I come back only once a year, I can only see them by video. I start to film our conversations, secretly. One day, I learn that Sonia, my cousin, has cancer. The distance that lies between us is bigger than ever. How to be wit…
Preview
Nocturne
  • Country/Area of Production： Korea
  • Language of Dialogue： Korean
  • Runtime： 95
  • Director： Gwanjo Jeong
  • Type of Work： Feature-Length Documentary
  • Producer： Gwanjo Jeong
Introduction: Seong-ho is a musician with an autistic disorder who has an extraordinary talent in music. But he is trapped in the world of video games and television. His mother has chosen the life of his shadow to groom him into a professional musician. Her only wish is to ‘Live an hour longer than Seong-ho.’ She would like to leave Seong-ho to his li…
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The Republics
  • Country/Area of Production： UK, Italy
  • Language of Dialogue： English
  • Runtime： 83 min
  • Director： Huw Wahl
  • Type of Work： Feature-Length Documentary
  • Producer： Huw Wahl
Introduction: A b&w 16mm artists' essay film, drawn from the book‘Republic Of Dogs / Republic Of Birds' by Stephen Watts, exploring landscape, history, memory and the power of words to celebrate and resist.
Preview
Fat Kathy
  • Country/Area of Production： Poland
  • Language of Dialogue： Polish
  • Runtime： 14 min
  • Director： Julia Pełka
  • Type of Work： Short Documentary
  • Producer： Michał Hudzikowski
Introduction: The film is a philosophical treatise on dependence people from nature and the world around them.
Preview
Spoon
  • Country/Area of Production： Latvia, Lithuania, Norway
  • Language of Dialogue： N/A
  • Runtime： 65 min
  • Director： Laila Pakalniņa
  • Type of Work： Feature-Length Documentary
  • Producer： Laila Pakalniņa
Introduction: A film about a plastic spoon and a society that has reached a high level of development – oil is being retrieved from subterranean depths, transported to processing plants, turned into plastic, transported to another plant, where it acquires the shape of a spoon, transported to convenience stores, where we buy it, and is then soon tossed …
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