What follows is fascinating story about a small corner of screen culture in Shanghai today. I wish it was part of our research, but I guess it is not! This is my letter to Katja Wiederspahn in Vienna. She and I are involved in programming some films for an event in Vienna next year.

Dear Katja

Yesterday, the visit to Mr. Liu Debao happened. This was very interesting indeed! I think it promises to be potentially very useful for the Vienna event next year. So, I will give a full report.

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Mr. Liu has a photography business and is based out in the Putuo neighbourhood of Shanghai. You enter what appears to be a garage space via a roll-up metal shutter. Inside there is a sort of mixed space — part archive, part screening room, part office, part shrine. He has 10,000 + posters and 3,000+ films from the Mao era. The films include everything from documentaries and newsreels to features, including completely forbidden and banned materials. He also has a number of old projectors, old radios etc. In other words, the guy is a classic collector, with his particular fetish and an absolute obsession about it.

In attendance at the meeting were myself, Mr. Liu, Maria Barbieri, Wu Jueren, Professor Shi Chuan, Professor Chris Connery, and 2 of Prof. Connery’s guests. You may know Maria. She lives in Shanghai and has helped various film festivals, especially those in Italy, for a long time. Prof. Shi Chuan is in the film department at Shanghai University. Wu Jueren is his student, and working closely with Liu. Chris Connery is the University of California Education Abroad person here in Shanghai. Except for Wu Jueren, who I have just met, these are all old friends and we all know and trust each other pretty well (I think).

Mr. Liu was born in 1951, and says he is a child of the revolution. He was a Little Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution here in Shanghai. He was approximately 16 when it began. He rose high enough in the ranks to be sent to Beijing twice to see Mao (along with millions of others in Tiananmen Square, no doubt). He clearly is full of nostalgia for the good old days, and very proud of China’s independent achievements during this era. There is an irony here, I would say. He is really part of the generation that were thrown on the scrap heap of history when the government turned to the new market era. But he himself has acted in a thoroughly entrepreneurial manner to survive and thrive in this new era. He helps people to locate and buy Maomorabilia, and he offers to send people copies of the newspaper from their date of birth, etc. But most of all he has turned himself and his unique collection into something that can tour etc.

He explained that he started collecting when he found out people were just throwing their old celluloid out and he could get it for next to nothing. Now he goes to the far ends of the country and even overseas to collect the stuff. It’s sitting in his hot damp garage deteriorating, sadly. The authorities are not interested so far in helping him to preserve it. Either they want to take it from him (in which case it would disappear from view), or they don’t want to know because they are a bit embarrassed about the Cultural Revolution era.

Mr. Liu holds screenings in his garage and even in the alleyway nearby. Friends come round. They spend all day talking about the good old days. He screened the 1966 and 1969 October Day celebrations in Tiananmen Square for us, using one of his old projectors. The projector and Mr. Liu are as important parts of the whole spectacle as the slightly pinkish films. He gives a strong introduction and then off we go. It’s a bit like a benshi performance, except Mr. Liu likes to crank the soundtrack, with its exciting martial music, up as loud as possible!

We then had a long discussion about showing this material. He has been to Singapore and done screenings there. Maria is helping Asian Film Festival in Rome, which apparently runs in November. By coincidence, they are making the Cultural Revolution their theme this year. She asked about the procedures and permissions. Lots of talk about bureaucracy followed. But eventually we understood something important — he was talking about the bureaucracy in Singapore and the visas etc. He didn’t need to get any permissions on the Chinese side. He just went to the airport with his rusting cans of film and his projector and got on the plane. The Chinese authorities only care about new films, he insisted. These are his private possessions. (Again, given his nostalgia for the good old days, this is ironic, too!)

Maria is now going to see if Rome wants to invite him. If they do, then they can be guinea pigs and we will see if there is no problem when he goes to the airport again. In the meantime, I leave it to you to think about whether an evening with Mr. Liu Debao, China’s “Red Collector” (as he is known), would be an interesting and potentially affordable and doable part of next year’s exhibition.

Attached, a few photos.

Much love

Chris

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