CIFA has been actively promoting the use of films collected in our archive in secondary education and reaching out to local young audience. On the 28th of March 2025, 30 British pupils from two secondary schools in the Newcastle area, all selecting Chinese for GCSE and A-level, participated in our Chinese Independent Film Screening Session and Discussion.
The event featured three short films, all by female filmmakers. Each of them offers insight into childhood and education in China during a period of rapid economic growth and widening rural-urban disparities around 2010. The screened films are Children at the Great Wall (dir. Shi Tou, 2007), Speaking Up 2 (dir. Tammy Cheung, 2008), and Face to Face (dir. Ye Yun, 2010). These films sparked a meaningful cross-cultural dialogue between Chinese and British young people.
Following the screening, pupils engaged in group discussions under the guidance of PhD student, Xinyue Hu. Reflecting on the films, one student shared his thought, ‘I saw how limited access to educational resources in rural China at the time may have shaped how children viewed themselves and the world’. Another student, noting the 15 years’ time gap since the films were made, was curious about the current situation in China and expressed interest in further studying Chinese society after watching these films.
(All the pupils in the photos had their parents signing the consent forms for filming them)
