Wang Bing

Wang Bing Chinese 王兵 pinyin Wáng Bīng born 16 November 1967 Xian is a Chinese documentary director often referred to as one of the foremost figures in documentary filmmaking Wang is the founder of his own production company Wang Bing Studios which produces most of his films His movie on Chinese labour camps The Ditch was included in the 2010 Venice Film Festival as the film sorpresa He began his career as an independent filmmaker in 1999 Discovered in 2003 West of Tracks an enormous documentary work of more than 9 hours has garnered great success internationally In addition to his feature documentaries he is also active in video installation fiction film and photography His movie on Chinese labour camps The Ditch was included in the 67th Venice Film Festival 2010 as the film sorpresa His movie Youth Spring was selected to compete for the Palme dOr at the 76th Cannes Film Festival 2023 Tie Xi Qu Wangs 9 hour epic documentary of industrial China was considered a major success Tie Xi Qu went on to win the Grand Prix at the Marseille Festival of Documentary Film and was shown for the first time in Spain at the Punto de Vista International Documentary Film Festival Wangs film Fengming a Chinese Memoir premiered at both Cannes and Toronto in 2007 Crude Oil premiered at the 2008 Rotterdam Film Festival Since then his films became a staple at every prestigious international film festival 2017s Mrs Fang was awarded the Golden Leopard at the 70th Locarno Festival French philosopher Georges DidiHuberman dedicated a long epilogue to Wang Bing in his 2012 book Peuples exposés peuples figurants He reflects on the social fate of images thoroughly analyzing Wangs 2010 Man with No Name writing that the director as a humble portrait artist of a single rural worker manages to represent the whole of Chinas people as well as people from all over the World not through his past nor his ideas nor his name nor his place in society but through the simple gestures with which he works at his solitary life as opposed to the common epic portraits of national identity based on military prowess war heroes and manifest destinies