DCN 2 Dali: China’s Van Goghs

The second edition of the Dutch Culture Night, and the first one in Dali, is a screening of another award-winning documentary – China’s Van Goghs.

Until 1989, the village of Dafen in the city of Shenzhen, China was little more than a hamlet. It now has a population of 10,000, including hundreds of peasants turned oil painters. In the many studios, and even in the alleyways, Dafen’s painters turn out thousands of replicas of world-famous Western paintings. In 2015, the turnover in painting sales was over $65 million.

Directors Haibo and Kiki Tianqi Yu follow one of the painters, Xiaoyong Zhao. He and his family have painted around 100,000 Van Goghs. After all these years, Zhao feels a deep affinity with Van Gogh. Having never seen van Gogh’s original paintings, Zhao’s biggest dream is to travel to Amsterdam to see the works of his legendary associate. After struggling and saving, he fulfils dream. In Europe, his encounter with van Gogh’s paintings brings an epiphany.

China’s van Goghs not only presents how this painter pursues his dream, but also tells the human story of challenge and struggle during the journey, emblematic of the journey that China is going through from ‘made in China’ to ‘Created in China’.

Sponsored by the Consulate-general of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Chongqing, produced by WenLan.