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The late 1980s and early 1990s marked a decisive period for documentary film in China, especially in the months and years following the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. A new kind of cinema began to emerge: one that captured contemporary urban and rural life “on the scene” (现场) and at the margins. One of the most important collectives at the forefront of China’s New Documentary Movement was the Structure. Wave. Youth. Cinema. (SWYC) Experimental Group. Yet many of the films made by this group have remained largely unseen due to censorship and state interference.
The “SWYC” acronym also alludes to the names of the group’s four core members: Shi Jian (时间), Wang Zijun (王子军), Kuang Yang (邝杨), and Chen Jue (陈爵). Formed in the late summer of 1989 in a China Central Television (CCTV) dormitory, the group would go on to have a major impact on the aesthetic development of documentary cinema in China in the following years, especially through the films and television series its members directed and produced during their long careers within state media institutions. Seen together in what is, to date, the most expansive SWYC retrospective, these works restore a long-missing chapter in Chinese film history and offer critical insight into life in China during a period of rapid and enormous social, political, and economic change.