zhang yong: recording the story of china-africa friendship with images
2024-09-07
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china news service, hangzhou, september 6, title: zhang yong: recording the story of china-africa friendship with images
author cao dan
"i remember when i was a child, there was a railway in front of my house, and the sound of the whistle was the rhythm of my childhood..." the theme song of the documentary "revisiting the tanzania-zambia railway" opens with the sound of a train whistle. the moving melody and the brisk drum beats are intertwined, bringing the audience into the african continent in an instant.
the tanzania-zambia railway is one of china's largest foreign aid projects to date and a monument to china-africa friendship. during the 2024 forum on china-africa cooperation summit, the signing of the "memorandum of understanding on the activation of the tanzania-zambia railway project" will help upgrade the railway and improve logistics and transportation efficiency.
"in 2018, we interviewed staff and local residents at dozens of railway stations along the railway, using their understanding and words to record the true story along the tanzania-zambia railway," said zhang yong, director of the documentary and deputy dean of the international film and television development research institute of zhejiang university, in an interview on the 6th.
what is africa really like? how can we promote the public's correct understanding?
"we need to return the right to understanding to the audience." zhang yong said that as a film and television practitioner, it is his mission to pick up the camera and record comprehensively, objectively and impartially. "images have always been an important window for enhancing mutual understanding. the most important thing in effectively connecting the two ends is to have a 'flat' posture and a 'flat' perspective."
in the past decade, zhang yong has created and directed many african-themed documentaries, including "bobby's factory", "i go to africa", "i come from africa", and "the china-africa relationship of the post-90s generation", which have been translated into english, french, arabic, swahili, hausa, hungarian, italian and other versions and widely circulated in africa and europe.
"this world is a world of millions of ordinary people. i focus on the group portraits of small characters and ordinary people, and every audience member is also an ordinary person. the laughter, crying and singing of the characters in the film all happen naturally, so it is easier to empathize." zhang yong said that giving the right to understand the story back to the audience is a vivid manifestation of art as a universal language that transcends national boundaries.
as exchanges and interactions between chinese and african youth become increasingly close, the approach and narrative style of zhang yong's documentaries have also changed.
take the five-episode documentary "the china-africa relationship of the post-90s generation" released in 2023 as an example. this documentary tells the story of china-africa exchanges from the perspective of the post-90s generation. each episode selects an event in which an african youth and a chinese youth work together, telling the story of how they change their mutual perceptions and promote each other in the process of cooperation.
poster of the documentary "the china-africa relationship of the post-90s generation". (photo provided by the interviewee)
at the beginning of the school year, zhang yong, a university teacher, returned to campus to share his documentary creation experience with students.
"in addition to senior creative personnel who have been in the industry for many years, my team also includes some chinese and foreign students. many students became interested in documentary creation in class, and after many practical trainings, they now have strong creative skills," said zhang yong.
zhang yong welcomes african students to join him and hopes that through the china-africa co-production model, the cooperation between the youth of the two countries in cultural exchanges and the development of the film and television industry can be promoted to show more diverse and richer african stories. (end)
