FENG Yan
Abstract
In her moving account, Feng Yan has shared with us how her documentary career has intricately intersected with the trajectories of Japanese filmmakers and the Japanese film culture scene, from which she has acquired lots of inspiration for both her life and work. Starting with her mentor, Nonaka Akihiko, who introduced her to the world of documentary while she was a PhD student at Kyoto University, Feng recalls her decades-long journey as a director, curator (coordinator) and translator apropos Sino-Japanese documentary exchanges. At the same time, with admirable insight, Feng also introduces the theories and methodologies of several former Japanese filmmakers and documentarians (Ogawa Shinsuke, Tsuchimoto Noriaki, Kikuchi Nobuyuki, Sato Makoto and others) that are grounded in their own social context and location-based. And she talks about how these visions have illuminated her own understanding of documentary filmmaking and continued to inspire her practices.