Jia Zhangke - Beijing BC MOMA Speech Translation

While sick and dazed I read through the last few months of the Modern Chinese Language and Culture (MCLC) emails and found a Chinese transcript for a speech Jia Zhangke had delivered mid-July in Beijing, detailing some of his feelings about the Sixth Generation of filmmakers. An abridged version appears here in Chinese [Southern Weekly] and dGenerate films had translated excerpts here. I took a quick stab at translating the full speech, though it's a bit patchy and enigmatic at various parts. With The World, these were the precise sentiments that I think many saw him wrestling with - juggling multiple audiences, and the prerequisites for commercial appeal. There it was implicit in his stylistic transitions - here its quite explicit.

I Wish I Knew will be showing at the Hong Kong Asian Film Festival on October 29 and 31st. 

I Don’t Believe You’ll Predict Our Ending
Jia Zhangke
July 21, 2010

Personally, I hadn’t known what the category of “Sixth Generation” really marked, what it meant. Speaking purely in terms of age, I’m 7 years younger than Zhang Yuan, who released Mama in 1990. And I’m half a year older than Lu Chuan, who self identifies as a “Seventh Generation” director. It was after I directed Xiao Wu at the age of 28 that people gave me the tag “6th Generation,” and that was in 1998.

I’ve always thought that fervent emphasis on this generational affiliation and fevered opposition to it were in some ways one in the same. At core, its about wanting to avoid being labelled into a certain set, and of course to some degree, its about retaining your sense of individuality, or avoiding the negative connotations or what-naught carried by having such and such label. For instance, to be “Sixth Generation” was basically synonymous with having awful box office sales. But, I thought, if other people were willing to have that tag, I may as well too.

[FULL TRANSLATION AFTER THE JUMP]