Bumming in Beijing: The Last Dreamers

Director: Wu Wenguang

1990 / 70min / DCP

Widely regarded as the opening salvo of independent documentary in Mainland China, Wu’s Bumming in Beijing—a portrait of broke bohemian artists scraping by in the capital city, among them future blue-chip star Zhang Dali—was shot with equipment from China Central Television (CCTV) with an eye towards inclusion in the television series People of China, but its depiction of restless youth in the time before and immediately after the Tiananmen Square massacre, not to mention its blunt depiction of a mental breakdown, proved too controversial for the small screen. A film of incalculable import: in capturing the emergence of a Chinese avant-garde, Wu in effect created a Chinese school of cinema vérité.

Part of The Last Dreamers