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Malcolm Clarke: Interpreting China through cinema
CGTN
Malcolm Clarke. /CGTN
Malcolm Clarke. /CGTN

Malcolm Clarke. /CGTN

A string of TED talks that can enable international audiences to understand China better recently went online. Malcolm Clarke, a two-time Oscar winner for best short documentary and a 16-time Emmy winner, was invited to participate in the "Understanding China" speech, to share his journey in documenting China.

Malcolm Clarke has made films in more than 80 countries around the world. Since 2013, he has focused his lens on China and conveyed his enthusiasm for the Chinese people and appreciation of China's favorable reaction to global change by weaving together four documentaries, including "Better Angles" and "A Long Cherished Dream."

Puzzled at the easy-to-digest confection of Chinese stories in Western media, he found his new multitude in China to tell China stories from an unbiased perspective and decided to spend significant time in China making documentaries. "I saw an opportunity to tell Chinese stories to a wider world," he said.

More than 40 years ago, in 1981, Clarke set foot in China and visited for a few months. Speaking about modern China, Clarke acknowledges that the country has completely changed since his first visit three decades ago.

In 2013, he returned to China for the second time to make a film about the interdependence between China and the United States. The film, titled "Better Angels," took longer than expected, and by the time it was released in 2019, relations between the U.S. and China had changed dramatically. As a result, he went to American colleges and used the opportunity to show the film to introduce China and promote American understanding of the real China. Clarke's attention was drawn back to the protest in Hong Kong at this time.

When he arrived in Hong Kong, he noticed a significant difference between what he saw and what the Western media reported. So he decided to use the camera to make up for the fact that the media did not tell and released "Hong Kong Returns," a series of short documentaries. "Our intention was to memorialize what was happening without bias for either side objectively," he said, addressing that his crew was very much in the minority telling that story.

The COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan in early 2020 sparked widespread global attention. After the city was locked down, Clarke decided to bring a film crew to Wuhan to document the people of Wuhan and the more than 40,000 healthcare workers who came from all over the country to help the city fight the epidemic.

Clarke notices that the Chinese government's fight against poverty, which began in 2010, has received little attention in the Western media. So he turned his camera back around and went to the front lines of China's poverty-eradication efforts, releasing the documentary "A Long Cherished Dream," which tells the vivid story of the Chinese people triumphing over poverty.

"China's restoration is one of the preeminent civilizations on the planet is already underway," he said.

"Although the drums may roll and the dogs may bark, the caravan that is China will still proceed and progress and move on successfully."

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