Cross-Cultural Learning through Film:
The China/Appalshop Filmmakers Exchange

Monday, November 21, 6:00pm, 109 Dickey Hall

Ji Dan and Freng Yan are filmmakers based in Kunming, China where most of China's ethnic minorities live. Similar to Appalshop filmmakers in Kentucky, they try to capture the culture and realities of rural people. They are visiting Kentucky for one month.

About the Filmmakers: Ji Dan was born in Heilongjiang Province, China in 1963. She graduated from Beijing Teachers University in 1987, followed by four years of study in Japan. In 1993, after finishing her studies, Ji Dan began working with film. Her documentary works, which have been shown in international film festivals and on television, include Japanese Women After World War II (1998), The Elders (1999), Gongbo's Happy Life (1999), and Wellspring (2002).

Feng Yan was born in Tientsin in 1962. In 1988 she began studies in economics at Kyoto University in Japan. Using a compact video camera, Feng Yan began making documentaries about the problems of poverty and education in rural China in 1994. Her works include I Want to Go to School, Runaway People, and Village Submerged by Dam. Her first feature-length documentary, Dreams of Changjiang was released in 1997.

Co-sponsored by Appalshop, UK's Asia Center and Educational Policy Studies

Last updated November 15, 2005 15:21 by the Webmaster - Content by Brad Duncan