We are delighted to welcome Yunfest to Oxdox:MK

Yunfest takes place in Kunming City in Yunnan Province. One of the major elements of Yunfest that sets it apart from festivals elsewhere in China is its focus on issues in Yunnan province, one of China's most ethnically, geographically and biologically diverse regions. Yunnan, which shares borders with Vietnam, Laos and Myanmar and occupies a portion of the Tibet-Qinghai Plateau, is home to a large number of China's ethnic minority groups. Of these minorities, Tibetans are the best known outside of the region, but there are numerous others including the Naxi, Yi, Bai and Dai that have made major contributions to the province's unique multicultural makeup.

For many of these minority groups, China's rapid economic development since the country launched its economic reforms at the end of the 1970s has brought money and goods to Yunnan's thousands of remote villages. It has also brought new problems.

Aside from new Chinese documentaries, Yunfest also features classic documentaries from Japan and the US, providing the audience a first-hand look at the stark contrast in styles between China's documentary scene and its counterparts.

Yunfest's very existence illustrates the major changes that have taken place in China, especially in terms of access to media and information for the average Chinese.

In the old days in most villages there was usually only one family with a television. Everybody in the village would go to that family's house just to look. The films and public discussions belied the notion of China being a country where individual expression and access to information is strictly controlled. Far from being underground, Yunfest was held at the provincial library with the blessing of the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, the provincial arm of the China Academy of Social Sciences.

Yunfest organizer Yang Kun, a Kunming native with a Master's in visual anthropology from Yunnan University, said Yunfest's primary goal was to assemble the best documentaries being made in China and use them to initiate a dialogue.