Idfa – Weijun Chen

Breakfast meetings in the hotel. This morning I was lucky to meet Chinese Weijun Chen, the director behind the international successes “I Will Vote for You” (photo) and “The Biggest Chinese Restaurant in the World”. He was in Amsterdam to meet his producer Don Edkins, the man behind the big series “Steps for the Future” and “Why Democracy”. Now he has entered and launched another mega project “Why Poverty”, see details on the site below.

Weijun Chen stands behind one of 8 long films in the series that has Nick Fraser from BBC and Mette Hoffmann from DR/TV as editors. More than 40 broadcasters around the world have joined the series that will have its premiere in one year and will also provide a website connected, plus several short films.

Here is a text clip from the site describing the film of Weijun Chen, quite a controversial film for China I guess:

In ancient times in China, education was the only way out of poverty – in recent times it has been the best way. But just over ten years ago, when higher education was commercialised by order of the government, the start of a major change in China’s society took place. The equality that once existed for all students has been destroyed, and for the millions of college graduates who come onto the job market each year, the future is bleak. Chinese Dream is a film that charts a societal shift that will have an impact on the future economic progress of China.

http://whypoverty.net/contact/

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Tue Steen Müller
Tue Steen Müller

Müller, Tue Steen
Documentary Consultant and Critic, DENMARK

Worked with documentary films for more than 20 years at the Danish Film Board, as press officer, festival representative and film consultant/commissioner. Co-founder of Balticum Film and TV Festival, Filmkontakt Nord, Documentary of the EU and EDN (European Documentary Network).
Awards: 2004 the Danish Roos Prize for his contribution to the Danish and European documentary culture. 2006 an award for promoting Portuguese documentaries. 2014 he received the EDN Award “for an outstanding contribution to the development of the European documentary culture”. 2016 The Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania. 2019 a Big Stamp at the 15th edition of ZagrebDox. 2021 receipt of the highest state decoration, Order of the Three Stars, Fourth Class, for the significant contribution to the development and promotion of Latvian documentary cinema outside Latvia. In 2022 he received an honorary award at DocsBarcelona’s 25th edition having served as organizer and programmer since the start of the festival.
From 1996 until 2005 he was the first director of EDN (European Documentary Network). From 2006 a freelance consultant and teacher in workshops like Ex Oriente, DocsBarcelona, Archidoc, Documentary Campus, Storydoc, Baltic Sea Forum, Black Sea DocStories, Caucadoc, CinéDOC Tbilisi, Docudays Kiev, Dealing With the Past Sarajevo FF as well as programme consultant for the festivals Magnificent7 in Belgrade, DOCSBarcelona, Verzio Budapest, Message2Man in St. Petersburg and DOKLeipzig. Teaches at the Zelig Documentary School in Bolzano Italy.

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