The development of self-therapeutic documentary films in China

This article is devoted to the study of the development of self-therapeutic documentaries in China since 2000. The object of the study is a Chinese documentary about self-therapy. The subject of the research are documentaries about self-therapy in the early 2000s: "More than One is unhappy" (2000), "Home Videotape" (2001), "Nightingale is not the only Voice" (2001), as well as films that appeared after 2016: "Small Talk" (2016), "Minding the Gap" (2017) and "The Lovely Widow and Her Annoying Son" (2019). Special attention is paid to self-therapeutic documentaries presented at the Mother Film Festival and the documentary masterclass FamilyLens, created in China in 2022. The author examines in detail such aspects of the topic as the causes of its occurrence, the definition of the genre and the form of the film text. To understand the trajectory of development of Chinese documentaries about self-therapy, as well as the causes and characteristics of each period, this study uses an integrated approach using content analysis and text analysis, as well as psychoanalytic theory to explain the filming of documentaries about self-therapy. The author argues that the key point in the foundation of the subgenre of documentaries about self-therapy in China is the presence of the director as the main character of the film, filming himself. The study identifies two distinct periods in the development of self-therapeutic documentary films in China, both of which are closely related to the development of film equipment. In conclusion, the author not only evaluates the positive attitude of self-therapeutic documentary practice towards self-awareness and raising public awareness of problems related to the native family, but also argues that researchers should pay more attention to potential ethical problems present in films. This is because, in fact, directors do not heal during filming, but use it as a means of attacking their parents.

self-therapy documentary, history of development, stages of development, reasons for origin, textual features, art therapy, the Mother Film Festival, Grassland Workshop, FamilyLens Workshop, ethical importance