Bao Hongwei
Born in Shaanxi and growing up in Inner Mongolia, I have never developed a strong sense of hometown. In fact, I have led a nomadic and diasporic lifestyle in the last forty years; I have been a migrant and foreigner in many countries, where I give up my native language and learn to live and write in foreign languages. I attended universities in Xi’an, Beijing, Nanjing and Sydney, and studied a range of subjects including English, journalism and communication, art, American studies, gender studies and cultural studies, all driven by my own interests. I have worked and lived in Xi’an, Beijing, Sydney, Berlin, London and Nottingham. Now middle-aged, I have finally settled down, in Nottingham, a city in the middle of England and the home county of the legendary Robin Hood. As I teach media and cultural studies, I also conduct research on queer cultures in contemporary China. I have written two books: Queer Comrades: Gay Identity and Tongzhi Activism in Postsocialist China (NIAS Press, 2018) and Queer China: Lesbian and Gay Literature and Visual Culture under Postsocialism (Routledge, 2020). If you ask me where I come from and where my hometown is, I do not know and probably cannot care less; but if you ask me where my home is, home is where I live and write, and what I make it to be.
Wu Wenguang
Wu Wenguang was born in southwestern China’s Yunnan Province in 1956. After graduating from high school in 1974, Wu was sent to the countryside, where he worked as a farmer for four years. Between 1978 and 1982, he studied Chinese Literature at Yunnan University. After university, Wu worked as a teacher at a junior high school for three years, and then he worked in television as a journalist for four years. Wu left television moved to Beijing in 1988 to be an independent documentary filmmaker, freelance writer, and creator and producer of dance/theatre.
Wu documentaries include: Bumming in Beijing (1990), 1966, My Time in the Red Guards (1993), Jiang Hu: Life on the Road (1999), Fuck Cinema (2005), Bare Your Staff (2010), Treating (2010), Because of Hunger (2013), Investigating My Father (2016), Autobiography: Pass Through (2017), Autobiography: Struggle (2018) Autobiography: Fear (2019), and Riding Through (2020). These have screened in many film festivals round the world. Wu has also shot short video works, such as Diary: Snow, 21 Nov, 1998 (1999), Public Space (2000), and Search: Hamlet in China (2002).
Wu has created theatre pieces, such as Treating (2009), Memory: Hunger (2010), Investigating My Father (2013) and Reading Hunger (2016), Reading Father (2019). He has also published non-fiction books (Bumming in Beijing, 1966, Revolution Scene, Report on Jianghu). In 2005, Wu founded the Village Documentary Project, and in 2010, the Folk Memory Project.
Zhu Rikun
Old Zhu (surname) or Old Pig (which sounds the same as my surname Zhu in Chinese), is a marginal person, a professional film amateur, and an uncompromising curator of Chinese independent film since the beginning of the twenty-first century, from Beijing to New York. I was addressed as an elder when I was still young but referred to as a young cynic now I am getting old. The past has passed; the future is unpredictable. I would rather grow into old age by the ancient willows next to an old pond.
Wang Xiaolu
I am a native of Shandong, a province which is abbreviated as Lu. ‘Confucius feels the Lu kingdom is too small when he climbs onto the top of the East Hill’. My name was derived from this verse. I have devoted myself to writing on and the curation of Chinese independent films for many years. I always advocate to advance academic research through curating activities. My research interests lie in Chinese film culture and history, especially the history of independent documentaries and the relationship between film narratives, history and reality. I have written columns about Chinese cinema in newspapers such as The Economic Observer, Southern Weekend and Beijing Daily. I have also worked as a programmer, curator or jury member for film festivals such as the China Independent Film Festival, Beijing Independent Film Festival, First International Film Festival, and Reel China Biennale. These activities have expanded my vision and helped my research. I have published a number of books including Disease of Our Time: Witnessing Independent Film Culture (2008), The Politics of the Cinema (2014), and The Will of the Cinema (2019).