When feminism encounters New Documentary Movement: an uncompleted academic discussion

This article starts with the “encounter” between feminists in the “International Symposium on Chinese Women and Visual Representation” and Chinese documentary filmmaker Xu Tong’s Wheat Harvest, and explores the viewpoints and standpoints of feminist actors. With the analysis of the similarities and differences between the independent documentary perspective and the feminist stance, the author elaborates more deeply on why Chinese female directors do not have the consciousness of “feminism.” China’s independent documentary shows how the issue of feminism in China is intertwined with China’s various complex socio-political issues. The way of Chinese documentary filmmaker as “living with the bottom rung” is a kind of practical behavior that seeks truth by integrating itself with it. This requires great courage and idealism, as well as social experience. The bottom layer is where the dark side of the society exists which is beyond the law and morality. The question raised is precisely how to promote the development of feminism and documentary together to work for an equal and just society itself. The more urgent task of Chinese feminism is how to rethink the relationship between the reality of China and feminism, and how to re-establish effective dialogue and cooperation with various critical forces in this society. In the historical perspective of the feminism development of China over one century, gender and women's issues have never existed in isolation, but have moved forward with various social and political movements. How to re-examine this historic heritage to face China's problems and crises today is an uncompleted answer that China's feminism must hand over.