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Editor’s Note

This was a long time ago, but because of the epidemic, because of revisions, and because I have been trying to find a more suitable time, its materials and the first draft have been lying in my folder for months. Unexpectedly, because of a butterfly-like network wave, our protagonist suddenly received attention and applause that had not been seen in the past ten years in the past thirty hours.

This may be accidental or inevitable. Such a person is always worth seeing by more people.

His name is Jiang Nengjie, an independent documentary director dedicated to shooting public welfare topics, and the protagonist of the tenth story of our “Social Innovation Character Series.” Facing withering, breaking and forgetting, what can one change and what can his lens bring? Jiang Nengjie has no answer, but something still needs to be done.

“As a creator, my task is basically completed. Public welfare topics can only be valuable if they are spread, so I can speak better.” After receiving countless news overnight, Jiang Nengjie said on his Weibo, “If Promote their situation to improve a little, and do not persist in years of unjust treatment. “

“The problem with Chinese independent documentaries: no one sees it, it is difficult to release it, and no money to make it, which is an art in itself.”

On March 30, 2020, someone left this text on the short comment page of Douban Movies. The movie is called “Miners, Groom, Pneumoconiosis”. On such an uncommon day, such a difficult and realistic documentary was on the Douban hot movie list.

On the days covered by pneumonia, people realized another kind of injured lung through this film. With rough truth, the film depicts three pictures of suffering: mine disaster and mineMin, groom and family, pneumoconiosis and death.

● “Miners, grooms, pneumoconiosis” poster / Cotton Sand Image Studio

In the past, no one wanted to watch this show of pain, but also brought painful films. The problems encountered in the “independent documentary” in the short review, this “Miner, Groom, Pneumoconiosis” is indeed all three-unknown, unable to The film was released, and no funding was announced. Its director adopted a method that seemed like heaven and earth. He looked for everyone who marked “wanted” on Douban, and then paid attention to it and sent a private message. The content of DouPost was that film. Download address of the network disk.

This director is Jiang Nengjie.

From the start of shooting to killing the young man, this film, which was only 82 minutes, took Jiang Nengjie for ten years. Ten years later, some of the protagonists in his lens have grown up, while others have been told to others.

What does ten years mean for a director? It may be the trajectory of the fourteen films superimposed, it may be the time between the countryside and the city, it may be a constant balance between ideal and reality, or it may simply be condensed in the way he is used to introducing himself: >

“I’m Jiang Nengjie. I’m a documentary filmer. I’m from Hunan.”

● Jiang Nengjie / Photo courtesy of the respondent

Child in the village

The story between Jiang Nengjie and the camera started with a primary school in a village.

Since 2001, a wave of retreat points has been set up across the country. In 2004, the village elementary schools that had been in operation for many years but were unable to maintain the village were unable to escape. Eventually, the abolition was announced, and the children in the village could only reach ten Kilometers away from town. The vast majority of families are unable to support such a path to school. In 2006, the village raised funds to open a “temporary private school” in a private house for the first children to attend school.

Most of the labor in the village went out to work. Of the 22 children who were studying at the time, 17 were left-behind children. A few years later, the number of children in the village doubled, and there was still only one teacher. Group after group of children finished the lower grades at the village primary school, and then began to follow the older brother and sister to the town at six in the morning. Trucks inside.

Guang’an Village, Yidushui Town, Xinning County, Hunan Province. This is where the village is located and Jiang Nengjie’s own hometown.

● A shot / video screenshot from “Road”

Jiang Nengjie, who just graduated from college, returned to the village with his lens in the summer of 2009 and focused his attention on these children. Three months after the black-and-white was reversed, the first documentary short film “Road” based on interviews with children was finally released. As a debut, this film was shortlisted for the China Documentary Communication Week, but before that, Jiang Nengjie himself But he ran out of limited savings in Beijing.

Applying, resigning, and re-applying … In order to raise funding for filming and to survive, finding a job was the only solution he could think of at the time. Relying on the results of “Road”, Jiang Nengjie entered a large film and television company in Beijing, but did not move closer to his dream—the villager was still calling him, and the direct cost of continuing to return to the village to continue shooting was to quit his job.

In 2010, because the village elementary school that was finally rebuilt and could not retain the teacher, Jiang Nengjie quit his job in Beijing to become the first college student teacher in the village, and went back to replace the three-month class. In 2014, during the period of substituting for the first time, and the material of the original “Road” continued to be followed for three years, Jiang Nengjie’s computer turned into a new work “Village Children”. In September of the same year, “Children in the Village” was screened for the first time at the Frankfurt Chinese Film Festival and won the first prize of the audience vote. The second prize was the domestic popular movie “Steel Piano”.

● “Village Children” poster / Cotton Sand Video Studio

It is not accidental to be attached to the village primary school. Jiang Nengjie also attended this school before the school storm, and his mother was also one of the first generation of migrant workers. In the later work “Plus One”, the little girl named Plus One did not go out when the parents left home, but she cried silently while hiding in the quilt. Jiang Nengjie also had a similar moment , But maybe not so sad-at that time, he was already a lot bigger than the camera.

At that time, when the holidays were approaching every year, he began to count his fingers, and after counting, he was looking forward to it. “It just didn’t take long before I thought of counting my fingers again.”

Every time my mother left, my father was carrying a bag next to me, and my three siblings stood by the door, watching the mother turn without a word. Why farewell is always silent. After many years, Jiang Nengjie had a chance to get his mother’s answer, “Don’t dare to turn back, don’t dare to speak, tears come out as soon as you speak.”

Jiang Nengjie, who has a good grade since he was young, was admitted to university after he grew up and studied design, but for children who belong to the village, this is not an option for most people. Fan Weiyuan, who had just finished the third year in 2009, said in the “Children of the Village” that “I have no hope (continued) to read, I ca n’t afford it, and I ca n’t afford it even cheaply.” Perseveringly throw this question over and over to every child in front of the camera: “What do you want to be when you grow up?? “

“Working.” This is the answer for every child.

Unusual way

Starting with every child who is looking forward to going out to work, Jiang Nengjie’s lens begins to extend deeper. In “Children in the Village”, those children who go to the town’s elementary school at 6 in the morning. Most of them will end in the 2015 work of “third day”; in “road” in 2009, they were just six years old and still ignorant The little girl Yun Jie became the protagonist of the new “Dwarf” in 2015.

● Six-year-old Yun Jie in an interview in 2009 / Video screenshot

Coming and going, similar to fate and predicament, but different from each other’s life.

“He didn’t grow up, he will do what he likes right away.” Liu Wenliang is the director of the “Good Night Guangzhou” show. After tears, he immediately invited Jiang Nengjie to watch After the show, the two became friends.

He described “The Road” as Jiang Nengjie’s knocker. He knocked in, but took an unusual road, and it was completed.

Cotton Sands Image Studio was established in 12 years, it is Jiang Nengjie’s moment of true independence. The studio was originally set up in Guang’an Village, and he was alone. “Funding is an issue for all TV producers.” Speaking of money, Liu Wenliang sighed.

This is of course Jiang Nengjie’s problem. But his mentality is: “Rich is a rich game, no money is a moneyless game.”

“One person” has been his gameplay for a long time. The labor cost is minimized, and it is up to him to shoot, cut, and subtitle. A lot of work for a long time caused his fingers to fall into the disease, and it would hurt to mention the heavy things. 13 years of workThe room only recruited the first person, and since then two more have come in. One of them, who he thought was pretty good, also returned to the countryside and started doing pure commercial shooting.

The problem of feeding yourself is always serious. In addition to the continuous documentary materials, Cotton Sand Studio also accepts some commercial projects. One of them, a project to shoot elderly people in empty nests in rural areas came to the door and asked to take photos that reflected the living conditions of these elderly people, and then took the photos to industry District and college exhibitions.

● The participating photograph “Old Man, Son, Grandson” / Jiang Nengjie

Jiang Nengjie quickly realized that the same vulnerable group, the elderly are more marginal and more easily ignored than children. The local empty nest old man entered his lens one by one. In addition to photography, he also did oral history. Some people were still lonely after leaving the camera, and some people really left after leaving the camera.

A few years after the exhibition, some relatives will come to ask for photos when the old man dies. This is the use that Jiang Nengjie didn’t expect: at least a photo can be provided for their family.

Jiang Nengjie therefore opened another road of exploration: what the camera can touch is not only the future of children, but also the past of old people. Several veterans of Guang’an Village who had participated in the Anti-Japanese War and now can only face the empty nest became Jiang Nengjie’s first shooting subjects. The Anti-Japanese War Veterans series of documentary filming was planned to be launched by Yu Yan.

In 2013, Jiang Nengjie’s first work about the veteran of the Anti-Japanese War, “Dragon Old” was released. In 2015, he completed the follow-up sequel “Dragon Old” in the same series. At this time, the protagonist Long Yunsong in front of the camera has passed away.

● Long Yunsong in “Long Lao” / Video Screenshots

The former Chinese expeditionary soldier has a bleak night scene, but the problem is not a summary of the distress of life. Jiang Nengjie wrote down the details that shocked him in the photographer ’s notes. The funds are enough for the elderly to live normally in the countryside, but when asked about their wishes, the life-long anti-Japanese war hero replied:

“Go to death, hope to die now.”

“I am a recorder”

From left-behind children to lonely elderly people, different situations point to the same cause, but the answer is not something an individual can afford. The problem of rural development is too big a problem. Those who want to face the reality through the lens will inevitably encounter the torture of their meaning and value first.

Ten years of ups and downs, Jiang Nengjie gave a fairly conservative answer to this: “I’m a recorder, I’m a discoverer, I’m not that great, I can’t change at least I can let more people see Aware of this, this is what we can do, at least to record history. “

For creation, he refuses to consider any preset burden. The value of a documentary is not tied to its box office, that’s something that publishers need to consider; how much the audience resonates and what kind of power they can contribute to public welfare, he can’t control, too, and that’s what they do. “I’m not that powerful. Although I take a machine, I’m a vulnerable group myself.”

It’s not that I have a beautiful wish to change something through the lens. After the filming of “Road”, Hunan Satellite TV noticed the inconvenience of children’s transportation to school in the film and once gave it to a school bus in the village. However, the local roads are too narrow to solve the safety problem. Later, the road was repaired, but the local government could not afford the cost of school bus drivers and gasoline. The school bus was left idle after all.

The creation itself, in such constant pressure, inevitably moves towards a stronger sense of loneliness and a higher and higher self-requirement.

In 2018, Xu Rui, a junior junior, contacted Jiang Nengjie via WeChat, hoping to come to his studio as an intern. “He is very fierce, I think his problem”Very fierce”, Xu Rui refers to the question in the “Children in the Village” that got the same answer over and over again-“what do you want to do when you grow up?” “

● Jiang Nengjie is with the children in the village / Photo courtesy of the interviewees

Imagination is always easy, and when I started doing things, I found that the documentary filming was more difficult than expected. During the internship, Xu Rui once led the task of shooting materials in the village, and happened to meet a little girl standing on the grass on the side of the field and singing. Xu Rui quietly turned on the camera. In the picture, the girl sings to herself, next to her grandma in the cultivated land. After a while he turned off the video and recorded the sound.

When watching this content afterwards, Jiang Nengjie and Xu Rui both felt sorry. The wind is too strong, licking the headset in the past, the whirring wind swirling in the open environment, suppressing the singing. Jiang Nengjie asked him, “Why don’t you let her sing again? Go to a quiet environment and get closer.” Xu Rui kept silent on this opinion, but simply answered, yes, I didn’t do it then .

“You have a person who has been in the habit for more than 30 years and has been a director for ten years, and it is impossible to change his mind.” The big boy felt the stubbornness of the director in his work. Sometimes, he even felt that he was too demanding. Jiang Nengjie at work was not a good-tempered person, and he was not the only one who had taught this.

In 2015, the dwarf starring young girl Yun Jie was Jiang Nengjie’s first feature film. Out of love, talented Taiwanese producers Liao Qingsong and Lin Qiang took over editing and soundtrack work respectively. Both have won the Golden Horse Awards in their respective fields, but when it comes to films, Jiang Nengjie is still stubborn and only does what he wants. “It has my name written on it, director Jiang Nengjie, so come and accept one of my styles, the way I tell stories, and I am very happy to touch you.”

● “Dwarf” Poster / Cotton Cotton Television Media Co., Ltd.

Xu Rui understands and agrees with Jiang Nengjie’s work. “Too many people have interfered with his creation. Some films have not been released and cannot be played. He is very depressing.” He called Jiang Nengjie as “I directed”, for a while, he emphasized, “I directed, he is a very good one. People. “

After graduation, Xu Rui stayed in Cotton Sands as a director of photography.

Waiting for the story to change

In the past ten years, Jiang Nengjie did five counts at the village primary school. The proportion of left-behind children has been around 75%. Many children ’s parents go out to work when they are less than one year old. The image of each other is gradually growing between them. disappear.

In “Children in the Village”, a grandmother told the story of her daughter-in-law and grandson: Daughter-in-law sells clothes outside, Zheng Yue goes out with a big bag on his back, and returns in December carrying a big bag on the road. None of his children knew. The camera was deflected, and another question was thrown out: “Do you remember what your dad looks like?” The little boy asked was a little dumbfounded, shook his head and said, “I don’t remember.”

● Hometown / Network under the lens of Jiang Nengjie, Guang’an Village, Yidushui Town, Xinning County, Shaoyang City, Hunan Province

Staying behind is not just a problem that these parents and children have to solve, it is also a problem that the entire society must face together. And the problem is everywhere