While China's transformation into a global superpower has been tarnished by shoddy goods, corruption, and pollution, its modernization offers filmmakers plenty of grit and grist to work with. Films such as Jia Zhangke's Still Life, which played in New York last summer along with Li Yu's Lost in Beijing, which was banned in China - more for its portrayal of corruption than its steamy sex scenes - have been among the country's strongest cultural exports.

Left: Still from Father, a film by Cao Fei. Right: Still from China Town, a video by Lucy Raven. Courtesy of Storefront for Art and Architecture.

And starting this week, Storefront for Art and Architecture presents a mini film festival of Chinese and Western documentaries, in conjunction with the exhibition Urban China, on view at The New Museum through March 29^th.

The first installment, China Town, a video by Lucy Raven, will be screened Saturday, February 28^th at 7:00 pm. In an animated sequence of stills, copper mining and production is traced from an open pit mine in Nevada to a smelter on the Yangtze River. In the process, Raven focuses on the recycling of the American landscape and its industrial economy into raw mineral wealth for a developing nation. Additional screenings of the film are scheduled for March 24-28 at 7:00 pm.

On March 7^th, Being with Clay, directed by Tang Hongyu and Lu Bin, will be screened at 7:00 pm. The film explores contemporary Chinese culture through regional techniques of potterymaking. From everyday crockery to colossal sculptures, from simple houses to public infrastructure and architectural monuments, the use of clay is central both to Chinese tradition and the nation's contemporary identity.

The theme of potterymaking continues in Cao Fei's film, Father, next up on March 14^th at 7:00 pm. The renowned Chinese artist follows his 72-year-old father, a state-sponsored artist and sculptor, through every step in the production, transportation and installation of an 18-foot-high clay sculpture of former Communist Party leader Deng Xiaoping. The sculpture was commissioned as one of the waypoints on an officially sanctioned tourist route that traces the stages of Deng Xiaoping's life from his rural roots to the Politburo in Beijing.

Finally, on March 21^st, Storefront will offer a rare look at the China that existed when Nixon made his historic visit in 1972. Chung Kuo - China, a documentary by Michaelangelo Antononi, is an epic depiction of China as a nation caught on the cusp of massive, far-reaching transformation. When screened at the Venice Film Festival in 1974, this stark yet ultimately sympathetic portrait sparked a diplomatic incident and was denounced by the Chinese government as a vicious act of anti-Chinese propaganda. According to the press release, the Party had approved and supervised the 8-week shooting, but Antonioni deployed secret cameras at various points to shoot unapproved locations.

Storefront for Art and Architecture is located at 97 Kenmare Street, NYC. For information: 212.431.5795 or info@storefrontnews.org