When Wang Xiaoshuai graduated from Beijing Film Academy in 1989, China's film industry was operating under a planned economy. Only a small number of studios, all state-owned, were allowed to produce films.
Wanting to start a career as a filmmaker, Wang and some friends scraped together about $6,000 to rent a camera and persuade a company to give them free film. His directorial debut, The Days, about a disillusioned artist couple, was screened at European film festivals in 1994. The British Broadcasting Corporation named it one of his 100 greatest films of all time.
However, Chinese film authorities were not satisfied. Authorities banned Wang from working in the industry after screening “The Days” at a foreign film festival without permission.
Like many other artists in China, Mr. Wang found a way around the ban and became one of the country's most acclaimed directors as restrictions were eased. But last month, history repeated itself. When his latest film, Above the Dust, was screened at the Berlin International Film Festival, his company received a call from Chinese censors. He was ordered to withdraw it or risk serious consequences.
“I never expected to be back in the same place 30 years later,” he said in an interview from London, where he is currently staying.
“It comes at a huge cost,” he said. “But that's the price I have to face and accept.”
Creative talent in China's film industry is struggling under increased censorship. The stifling restrictions remind veterans like Wang of harsher times when the Communist Party more tightly regulated speech and artistic expression.
This reversal is consistent with what has happened in many other creative industries as the Party tightens its control over the hearts and minds of the people. Publishers are having trouble getting their books approved. Musicians and comedians can also be banned for their lyrics, skits, or just for their one post on social media. Even hip-hop music should reflect positive energy and not be sad or gloomy.
In 2014, China's supreme leader Xi Jinping declared that literature and the arts should “serve the people and socialism.” “Among the core values of socialism, the deepest, fundamental and most eternal is patriotism,” he said. “Works imbued with patriotic sentiments are the most effective in rallying the Chinese people to unity and struggle.”
Xi's directives have set the tone for Chinese cinema ever since.
In 2018, oversight of the film industry was transferred from a government agency to the Party Propaganda Department, effectively making it a division of the state propaganda apparatus.
“For many filmmakers, the choice is clear,” said Michael Berry, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.. They could work together to make a propaganda film, which means it could be commercially successful, he says. “Otherwise, they will turn their backs on the Chinese market and become dissident directors working internationally.”
Wang decided to screen “Above the Dust'' in Berlin after receiving more than 50 censorship orders in about 15 months and with no hope of getting the green light. The film is about the descendants of landowners from the land reform era of the 1950s, a sensitive subject in China as millions of landowners were persecuted or killed and their land confiscated by the state. Censors demanded that Wang remove all references to the campaign.
It seems like censors sometimes kill projects for no apparent reason. Various lists of films whose release has been canceled, postponed or canceled are circulating on the Chinese internet. The authorities never explained their rationale. Sex and violence are clearly prohibited. Anything can be considered sensitive: crime, corruption, poverty, history, superstition, or just plain sadness. Crime and corruption reflect the dark side of society, so even propaganda films backed by police and anti-corruption agencies may ultimately fail the test.
“I always strive for creative freedom, but circumstances have made that impossible,” said Wang, 57. He says he and his colleagues often talked about whether the films they were considering making would pass the censors. “That thought always disturbs you,” he said. “It hurts a lot.”
Mr. Wang has always been a maverick in the Chinese film world, Mr. Berry said. Still, the professor was surprised that critics on Chinese social media were referring to “On the Dust” using garbled text to evade censorship.
Born in Shanghai in 1966, Wang moved with his parents to Guizhou province in southwestern China when he was two months old. This was part of Mao's policy to develop industrial and defense facilities in the interior, and involved the relocation of millions of people. Mr. Wang's family stayed in Guizhou until he was 13 years old. That experience deeply influenced his work. He said he focused on the lives of these people because he wanted to show their hardships. In the process, he said, he hopes to explain what made the Chinese people who they are today.
Mr. Wang's work was influenced by the French New Wave. He and directors such as Jia Zhangke and Lou Ye were known as leading figures in the “Sixth Generation Movement'' of Chinese cinema in the 1990s. They produced underground films outside the state-run film bureaucracy and paid little attention to official boundaries. When they were banned from working in the industry, they produced independent films for overseas markets.
In 2003, authorities invited Wang and others to talk about the future of Chinese cinema. It was the only time in his memory that filmmakers met with regulators on a somewhat equal footing. The government wanted to make the industry more market-driven and wanted government participation.
The following year, Wang's first film was approved in China. The censorship process took only two months. Although his films never did well at the box office, he continued to make films every two or three years. In 2019, he released So Long, My Son, which depicts the impact of China's one-child policy on two families. It won major awards at the Berlin Film Festival and the Golden Rooster Awards, the most prestigious Chinese film awards.
Under Mr. Xi's leadership, there was a romance between China and Hollywood, culminating in the 2016 film “The Great Wall,” directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Matt Damon. However, “main theme movies'' that promote official sentiments have come to dominate Chinese cinema. In 2022, Zhang made a film about a Chinese sniper who killed more than 200 Americans during the Korean War, a genre that became popular as U.S.-China relations deteriorated.
“Chinese cinema cannot be an outlet only for main theme films,” director Jia Zhangke, who made arthouse classics such as “Xiao Wu” and “Platform,” said in 2022. An experimental film made by a young director in order to get permission to screen it. “This uncertainty is causing great anxiety in the industry,” he added. “Investors will be reluctant to invest in these films and our talent pool will be challenged.”
“Any filmmaker in China knows how things have changed in recent years in terms of censorship and self-censorship,” director Wang said. “The atmosphere is becoming increasingly gloomy and cautious.”
That's why he decided to defy the censors and screen his new film in Berlin to encourage change, even if it meant being punished.
“It's my duty as a filmmaker,” he said. “I'm only in charge of movies.”