Born in 1972 in Jilin, northeastern China, Yang Lina (aka Yang Tianyi 杨天乙) is a leading figure in Chinese independent documentary. She graduated from the Art Academy of the People’s Liberation Army in 1995 and danced and acted in numerous ballets, theater plays and feature films, including Jia Zhangke’s Platform. She started to work as an independent documentary filmmaker in 1997 and was among the first to have adopted digital video to document the rapidly changing urban landscape and social fabric of Beijing around the turn of the 21st century. Her first documentary, Old Men, won a New Asian Currents Excellence Award at the 1999 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, and the 2000 SCAM prize at the Cinéma du Réel international documentary film festival in Paris. In 2013, Yang turned her talents to fiction filmmaking with Longing for the Rain, a challenging exploration of female sexuality in modern Chinese society. The film was nominated for prizes at the 2013 International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Taipei Golden Horse Awards, and won a Special Mention at the Hong Kong International Film Festival. Her second narrative film, Spring Tide, examines three generations of women who also represent different eras of Chinese history, and was the winner of the Audience Award at the 2019 FIRST International Film Festival in Xining, China.
Selected Filmography
| Role | Title (English) | Title (Chinese) | Year |
| Director | Spring Tide (Trailer) | 春潮 | 2019 |
| Director, Writer, Producer | Chunmeng (aka Longing for the Rain) (Trailer) | 春梦 | 2013 |
| Director, Writer | Ye Cao (aka Wild Grass of Qingdao) | 野草 | 2009 |
| Director, Producer | Love Life of Lao An | 老安 | 2008 |
| Director, Producer | My Neighbors & Their Japanese Ghosts | 我的邻居说鬼子 | 2008 |
| Director | Let’s Dance Together | 一起跳舞 | 2007 |
| Director | Home Video | 家庭录像带 | 2002 |
| Director, Producer | Old Men | 老头 | 1999 |
Articles
Lo, Vivienne, and Nashuyuan Serenity Wang, with Chen Jiahe, Ge Yunjiao, Li Weijia, Liu Hanwen, George Yao, Yang Qihua, Yang Xingyue, Yang Yi, and Zhou Dangwei. “Longing for the Rain: Journeys into the Dislocated Female Body of Urban China,” in Film and the Chinese Medical Humanities. Eds. Vivienne Lo, Chris Berry, and Guo Liping. London: Routledge (2020): 115-130.
Reynaud, Bérénice. “The Grain of the Real, The Grain of the Surreal, and the Grain of Light: Vancouver International Film Festival 2019.” Senses of Cinema 93 (January 2020): http://sensesofcinema.com/2020/festival-reports/the-grain-of-the-real-the-grain-of-the-surreal-and-the-grain-of-light-vancouver-international-film-festival-2019/
Yu, Tianqi. “Towards a Communicative Practice: Female First-Person Documentary in Twenty-first Century China,” in China’s iGeneration: Cinema and Moving Image Culture for the Twenty-First Century. Eds. Matthew D. Johnson, Keith B. Wagner, Tianqi Yu and Luke Vulpiani. New York; London: Bloomsbury (2014). 23-44.
Zhang, Zhen. “From Sidewalk Realism to Spectral Romance: Yang Lina’s Beijing and Beyond,” in Visual Arts, Representations and Interventions in Contemporary China: Urbanized Interfaces. Eds. Valjakka Minna and Wang Meiqin. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press (2018). 35-60.
Zhu, Zhaoyu. “Do the New Chinese Film Festivals Shape a New Chinese Independent Cinema? A Case study of Yang Lina’s Spring Tide.” Video presentation at the online conference “Reassessing Chinese Independent Cinema: Past, Present… and Future?” (January 29&30, 2021): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5xW6dW5YYo&feature=youtu.be
Interviews
“China’s female film directors.” Time Out Shanghai (April 4, 2014): https://www.timeoutshanghai.com/features/Film-Film_features/11712/Chinas-female-film-directors.html
Courage, Tamara. “Yang Lina Interview: ‘I have a special method. I always find my subject at my front door’.” Easternkicks.com (June 6, 2016): https://www.easternkicks.com/features/yang-lina-interview
Xu, Jia and Kevin B. Lee. “CinemaTalk: Interview with Yang Lina, director of ‘Longing for the Rain’.” dGenerate Films (May 24, 2013): https://www.dgeneratefilms.com/amp/cinematalk-interview-with-yang-lina-director-of-i-longing-for-the-rain–i
Reviews
Courage, Tamara. “Longing for the Rain.” Easternkicks.com (May 5, 2016): https://www.easternkicks.com/reviews/longing-for-the-rain
Krishnan, Arun. “Film Review: Spring Tide (2019) by Yang Lina.” Asian Movie Pulse (March 14, 2020): https://asianmoviepulse.com/2020/03/film-review-spring-tide-2019-by-yang-lina/
Pattison, Michael. “Longing for the Rain.” Eye For Film (June 11, 2013): https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/longing-for-the-rain-2013-film-review-by-michael-pattison
Scanlon, Hayley. “Spring Tide (春潮, Yang Lina, 2019).” Windows on Worlds (March 14, 2020): https://windowsonworlds.com/2020/03/14/spring-tide-%E6%98%A5%E6%BD%AE-yang-lina-2019/
Scheib, Richard. “Longing for the Rain (2013).” Moria (2013): http://www.moriareviews.com/fantasy/longing-for-the-rain-2013.htm
Vijn, Ard. “IFFR 2013 Review: LONGING FOR THE RAIN Gives An Unflinching Look At Sexual Desire.” Screen Anarchy (February 15, 2013): https://screenanarchy.com/2013/02/iffr-2013-review-longing-for-the-rain.html
Young, Deborah. “’Spring Tide’: Film Review – Shanghai 2019.” The Hollywood Reporter (June 18, 2019): https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/spring-tide-1219295
Other
“Headlines from China: ‘Spring Tide’, An Exceptional Female Story.” ChinaFilmInsider (May 5, 2020): http://chinafilminsider.com/headlines-from-china-spring-tide-an-exceptional-female-story/
Howard, Rory. “Yang Lina: Documentary maker turned story teller.” China.org.cn (May 19, 2016): http://www.china.org.cn/arts/2016-05/19/content_38486386.htm
Leng, Shumei. “Chinese film ‘Spring Tide’ explores difficult mother-daughter relationship in China.” Global Times (June 2, 2020): https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1190308.shtml
“The Female Gaze in Chinese Films.” Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation (2018): https://artsandculture.google.com/story/the-female-gaze-in-chinese-films/fwJCH9GzCvrOKw
Tsui, Clarence. “Chinese Director Yang Lina: ‘China is Getting More Patriarchal’.” The Hollywood Reporter (April 1, 2013): https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/chinese-director-yang-lina-china-431966
Xu, Tina. “Chinese Women Behind the Camera” The World of Chinese. (March 8, 2021): https://www.theworldofchinese.com/2021/03/chinese-women-behind-the-camera/
Links
Yang Lina’s IMDb entry: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0946020/?ref_=tt_ov_dr
Old Men entry on the Icarus Films website: http://icarusfilms.com/if-old
Women Filmmakers and Transnational China in the Twenty-First Century 