We Live in a Country of Earthquakes': China's Independent Documentary Filmmakers

China's documentary films have been overshadowed by its remarkable feature film successes over the past decade. But in March of this year (1998), the Grand Prix at the Paris Cinéma du Réel festival, the Cannes for documentaries, was awarded to Duan Jinchuan for his 100-minute video about a neighbourhood committee in Lhasa called Bakuo Nanjie Shiliuhao (No.16 Barkhor Street South). For most observers, this was a bolt out of the blue comparable to the screening of Chen Kaige's Yellow Earth at the Hong King International Film Festival in 1985.