1. Madame Mao
French documentary from 2013. Mao Zedong and his fourth wife Jiang Qing were married for 37 years, from 1939 until Mao's death in 1976. After his death, she was tried and imprisoned where, at the age of 77, she committed suicide. All the official portraits of her were removed after her death and she became a scapegoat of the things for which Mao was ultimately responsible.
2. The Real Losers Of The US-China Trade War
A 3 year trade war has created corporate casualties in both US and China. In China, a dual circulation model is now underway to mitigate the effects of US protectionism. In the US, a Biden administration mulls new economic measures against China, even as industry groups lobby for tariffs to be lifted. Both countries also brace for what used to be unthinkable- the possibility of a financial war.
3. Karl Marx und seine Erben (Karl Marx und seine Erben)
(Karl Marx und seine Erben)
It has an average vote of 7 on TMDB.
4. Come and dance with me. (Come and dance with me.)
An abridged history of motion pictures: In 1888 George Eastman registered the made up word “Kodak” as a trademark. In 1894 Jean Aimé “Acme” Le Roy presented the first film screening in New York City. In 1895 Auguste and Louis Lumière filmed workers leaving their factory in Lyon. In 1903 Thomas Alva Edison orchestrated and captured on film the electrocution of an elephant in Coney Island. In 2011 Anja Dornieden and Juan David González Monroy filmed dwarfs dancing on a stage at an amusement park in China. In 2012 Eastman Kodak filed for bankruptcy.
5. The World According to Tippi (Le monde selon Tippi)
Tippi is no ordinary child. She believes that she has the gift of talking to animals and that they are like brothers to her. 'I speak to them with my mind, or through my eyes, my heart or my soul, and I see that they understand and answer me.' Tippi is the daughter of French filmmakers and wildlife photographers, Alain Degre and Sylvie Robert, who have captured her on film with some of Africa's most beautiful and dangerous animals. Tippi shares her thoughts and wisdom on Africa, its people and the animals she has come to know and love. Often her wisdom is beyond her years, and her innocence and obvious rapport with the animals is both fascinating and charming.
It has an average vote of 9 on TMDB.
6. Draussen bleiben (Draussen bleiben)
(Draussen bleiben)
7. Benares Chungking Ichang
Arresting early film images of both northern India and central and south western China.
8. Hard to Believe
A documentary that examines the issue of forced live organ harvesting from Chinese prisoners of conscience, and the response - or lack of it - around the world. It's happened before: governments killing their own citizens for their political or spiritual beliefs. But it’s never happened like this. It’s happened so often that the world doesn’t always pay attention.
It has an average vote of 7.5 on TMDB.
9. The Family
Anne Hamilton-Byrne was beautiful, charismatic and delusional. She was also incredibly dangerous. Convinced she was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, Hamilton-Byrne headed an apocalyptic sect called The Family, which was prominent in Melbourne from the 1960s through to the 1990s. With her husband Bill, she acquired numerous children – some through adoption scams, some born to cult members – and raised them as her own. Isolated from the outside world, the children were dressed in matching outfits, had identical dyed blonde hair, and were allegedly beaten, starved and injected with LSD. Taught that Hamilton-Byrne was both their mother and the messiah, the children were eventually rescued during a police raid in 1987, but their trauma had only just begun.
It has an average vote of 7.5 on TMDB.
10. Investigating My Father (調查父親)
My father was a landowner’s son and an ex-Kuomintang Air Force pilot, who remained in mainland China after 1949. For survival, he tried to transform himself from a man of the ‘old society’ to a man of the ‘new society’. As his son, I started investigating his ‘history before 1949’, which he had kept away from me. This film documents the process of my investigation over twenty years.
11. Passfire
A film about fireworks, the people who make them and the cultures behind them across the globe.
It has an average vote of 7.2 on TMDB.
12. Souvenirs d'un singe doré (Souvenirs d'un singe doré)
(Souvenirs d'un singe doré)
It has an average vote of 9 on TMDB.
13. The World According to Xi Jinping (Le Monde selon Xi Jinping)
(Le Monde selon Xi Jinping)
It has an average vote of 7.8 on TMDB.
14. Parchim International (Parchim International)
A documentary showing a Chinese investor's attempts to turn a small regional airport in north east Germany into a major international air traffic hub.
It has an average vote of 6.6 on TMDB.
15. The Greatest Tomb on Earth: Secrets of Ancient China
Dan Snow, Dr Alice Roberts and Dr Albert Lin investigate a series of earth-shattering discoveries at a mighty tomb guarded by the Terracotta Warriors in China.
It has an average vote of 10 on TMDB.
16. 24 City (二十四城记)
As a decades-old state-run aeronautics munitions factory in downtown Chengdu, China is being torn down for the construction of the titular luxury apartment complex, director Jia Zhangke interviews various people affiliated with it about their experiences.
It has an average vote of 7.1 on TMDB.
17. The Day We Landed on the Most Perfect Planet in the Universe
A documentary taking its cues from children's imaginative flights of fancy.
18. Baobab Play
Children and teenagers throw sticks, berries, and leaves at each other from perches in a large baobab tree.
19. Guangzhou Dream Factory
Guangzhou, a.k.a. Canton, is southern China’s centuries-old trading port. Today the booming metropolis of 14 million is a mecca of mass consumption, its vast international trading centers crammed with every “Made in China” good imaginable. Every year more than half a million Africans travel to Guangzhou where they buy goods to sell back in Africa. Over time, some have chosen to stay, and for these Africans China looks like the new land of opportunity, a place where anything is possible. But is it? Featuring a dynamic cast of men and women from Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda, GUANGZHOU DREAM FACTORY weaves the stories of Africans chasing alluring, yet elusive, “Made in China” dreams into a compelling critique of 21st century global capitalism. Following a filmmaker’s journey from Ghana to China and back to Africa, GUANGZHOU DREAM FACTORY provides a rare glimpse of African aspirations in an age of endless outsourcing.
It has an average vote of 6 on TMDB.
20. Crocodile in the Yangtze
Crocodile in the Yangtze follows China's first Internet entrepreneur and former English teacher, Jack Ma, as he battles US giant eBay on the way to building China's first global Internet company, Alibaba Group. An independent memoir written, directed and produced by an American who worked in Ma's company for eight years, Crocodile in the Yangtze captures the emotional ups and downs of life in a Chinese Internet startup at a time when the Internet brought China face-to-face with the West. Crocodile in the Yangtze draws on 200 hours of archival footage filmed by over 35 sources between 1995 and 2009. The film presents a strikingly candid portrait of Ma and his company, told from the point of view of an “American fly on a Chinese wall” who witnessed the successes and the mistakes Alibaba encountered as it grew from a small apartment into a global company employing 16,000 staff.
It has an average vote of 10 on TMDB.
