The documentary filmmakers' struggle in shanghai (reprint from:Shanghai Daily)

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"For us, a documentary is like historical and academic documents. It has no commercial value. Even I prefer a Hollywood film over a documentary in my leisure," Ke says.

Ke and Guo consider it impossible to show the film on a large scale without violating the girl's privacy.

It has only been shown at a handful of international documentary film festivals and won top honors for first-time directing at the Lisbon International Documentary Film Festival.

The Independent Take

While Guo and Ke, who work in the media, took an academic approach to their documentary, Shu Haolun, a film professor at Shanghai University and an independent filmmaker, went to the opposite end of the spectrum for his film, "Nostalgia."

The documentary about vanishing shikumen (stone-gated) buildings and their residents was done in a personal style, with Shu himself often in the frames, emotive background music from the 1980s when he lived in the area and even a few re-enacted scenes from his childhood.

In fact, Shu calls it "a personal essay film" rather than "a classic textbook-defined documentary," like those he studied when obtaining a master's degree in fine arts from Southern Illinois University in the United States.

The film was widely successful among both local and foreign audiences and filmmakers. "Nostalgia" won the Reel China 2006 Best Documentary Award and Shu considers it a very Chinese film.

"It is not a stereotypical Chinese story looking for an international market," notes Shu, who funded it from his own pocket. "Certainly, film is an international language, but after all, it is culture-related and there is always something lost in translation."

His idea for a master's degree film project was dismissed as not reflecting American culture. That motivated Shu to return to China to make films. His first project in 2001 dealt with a subject more attractive to foreign producers and audiences - workers' struggles.

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