Please Vote For Me

Directory Chen Weijun discusses his documentary about primary
school class elections

Last month’s fifth annual Chinese Documentary Exchange Week (中国纪录片交流周) was held at the Songzhuang Art Center from May 25-31 and featured screenings of recent documentaries including Crime and Publishment, directed by Zhao Liang, Ghost Town, directed by Zhao Dayong, He Jia’s The Land, My Last Secret directed by Li Xiaofeng, and Li Yifan’s The Longwang Chronicles.

Director Chen Weijun, famous for his documentary about AIDS patients To Live Is Better Than To Die, was invited to discuss his experience filming the documentary Please Vote For Me, which won the 2007 New Zealand DOCNZ Award ceremony and was short-listed for the 2008 Foreign Documentary Award at the Oscars.

Set in a primary school in Wuhan, the story centers on a trio of third graders who have been chosen by their teacher to run for class monitor (ban zhang) and must give a series of performances and speeches to prove they are the most qualified. From the children's secret talks, to the parents' assistance and the candidates' public performances, Chen Weijun documented the entire process, including many details unknown to the parents and the teacher.

Please Vote for Me presents the real and surprising world of Chinese children at school – their involvement and understanding of the election process, their primitive emotions of honor and disgrace, their relationships with teacher and parents, and how their own behavior is influenced by society. A complete version with English subtitles can now be viewed on youku.com here.

The following Q and A is a more complete version of our interview with him that originally appeared in the April 2008 issue of tbjkids.

tbj: What inspired you to make this documentary?

Chen: In 2007, I was commissioned to make a documentary set in China by STEPS International. While I was considering ideas, I met Cheng Cheng, one of the three candidates in the documentary, when I was having dinner with his parents. By chance I asked him "What do you want to do when you grow up?" He answered: "I want to be Chairman Jiang Zemin." He then changed his mind and said, "No, I want to be Hu Jintao, because Jiang Zemin is retired."

I thought it was a very interesting answer. At same time, I was surrounded by the current news, where many young Chinese people are keen on taking the “world’s most important exam" (天下第一大考) – the Civil Servant examination. I wondered why Chinese young people were so obsessed with being powerful leaders. It reminded me of China’s One-Child Policy, where not only do parents and extended family indulge their children, but the children have an ever-shrinking world. They have less chance to hang out with children their own age and spend more time with their parents – their behavior and minds are heavily influenced by the adults around them, but at the same time they are children and are still naïve and cannot hide their true social values as adults can. I wanted to know how they would act when campaigning to be class monitor.

tbj: What were some of the difficulties you had making this documentary? And how did you organize the children when you were making it?

Chen: I didn’t organize anything. You cannot arrange something like this, and I would not want to – it is a factual documentary. My task was simply to record what happened. The only thing I interfered in was to tell the teacher to count the votes publicly and monitor the elections fairly. Many scenes that take place during the documentary were unknown to teacher before seeing the final version – they happened when the children were out of class. Why you can see what happened is because I put two wireless mics on the children. They let us shoot exactly what happened.

tbj:What was school like during your childhood?

Chen:I lived in countryside when I was child. We did not have class monitors until I was in middle school, and the teacher appointed all students leaders.

Tbj: How long did it take you to make this documentary?

Chen: The real election lasted less than two weeks, but it took me two months to finish editing. Before you begin the real shooting, you need let them get used to the camera and forget it is there. I moved my camera into this classroom before summer vacation and then spent time watching them and learning about the individual children, the teacher, the relationships among the students, class schedules and also which angle will be good to shoot at different times. After they finished the election, I still continued to shoot for three or four days. I wanted to record how the new monitor managed this class and what their response was after the election, just in case anything changed.

tbj: Did you expect to see such dirty tactics being used when you begun the project?

Chen: No, I really do not. But at some point I began to totally understand the parents. What they taught to their children was exactly what they felt and experienced in society. They believe winning can help their children live better in the future.

tbj: What responses have you got when screening it in other countries? And what influence do you think the documentary have on the parents?

Chen: In Japan, when NHK screened this documentary, it stirred up a lot of controversy. I heard Japanese children felt it would be very embarrassing and unacceptable to bring up someone's shortcomings in class. When I was in Australia, two primary school teachers said to me they really admired Chinese schools because they seemed to be able to organize students to do activities together, like doing exercise. I was shocked by this because it is one of the issues Chinese people are reconsidering – they are unsure whether this approach to education is of any use. For some parents I think it will make them reconsider how they raise their children, and how they want their children to act.

tbj: What do you think this documentary communication week in Songzhuang?

Chen: I saw many of good documentaries this time, such as Born in 2008 (生于2008年) which is about life of taxi driver as seen through the lens of a camera set in the taxi. Definitely watch it if you want to learn about real life in Beijing.

Chen Weijun’s recent documentary, The Biggest Chinese Restaurant, is currently being aired on the BBC.