The documentary film project "The River in Me" visually presents Chinese traditional music styles and living conditions along the Yellow River. This project not only adopts the creative approach of visual anthropology in film production but also spreads its achievements across multiple disciplines, including exhibitions, books, vlogs, and other forms, significantly influencing the popularization of local traditional culture. The project focuses on the relationship between rivers and local culture, reflects on the changes brought about by the times' development, and explores the balance between anthropological creative methods and market-oriented operation. This research aims to analyze the process of its multimodality application to provide a reference for future relevant creators.
<THE RIVER IN ME>SYNOPSIS: In its pursuit of a river that runs through the history of the Chinese nation, the making of <The River in Me>, a musical documentary film, lasted for 700 days and spanned 700,000 square kilometers. With zero-distance tracking and panoramic recording, we have followed Su Yang, a contemporary artist living in the Yellow River Basin, as well as the traditional artists of Qin Opera,Shadow Play, Hua’er and Northern Shaanxi Storytelling along the Yellow River who have influenced Su’s artist work. Their fates are manifested in songs, which merge with the scenery on both sides of the Yellow River. The crisscrossing stories of the five people track the lives of today, narrate the common destiny of 1.3 billion people,and explore the common future of land and culture.
