Wu Wenguang

Director

“I have always looked at the reality of my life, of the situations I found myself in. It is difficult to express, but the documentary is real life for me and in the process of making documentaries I feel that I am facing real life and in this way I do not try to avoid it; I do not try to escape it and that makes be braver – this is very important. I am the person I am through this experience.”

Biography

Wu Wenguang (吴文光) was born in southwestern China’s Yunnan Province in 1956. After graduating from high school in 1974, Wu was sent to the countryside where he worked as a farmer for a year, and as an elementary school teacher for three years. Between 1978 and 1982, he studied Chinese Literature at Yunnan University. After Wu got his Bachelor’s degree, he went on to teach at a junior high school for three years. In 1985, he started working in television as a journalist for three years. Wu left television and moved to Beijing in 1988 to be an independent documentary filmmaker, freelance writer and creator and producer of the dance performance group Living Dance Studio. —Chinese Independent Documentary Archive