Gan Xuewei

Birthday: December 30, 1916

Death: November 12, 2016

Chinese film director. Honorary director of the Chinese Filmmakers Association, a member of the Film Literature Society and an honorary member of the Chinese Film Directors Association. Gan joined the revolution in 1938 and went to Yan'an, where he studied at the first stage of the Drama Department of the Lu Xun Academy of Arts and stayed after graduation in 1939 as an assistant teacher in the acting class. In May 1942, he attended the Cultural and Art Symposium held in Yan'an and listened to Chairman Mao's speech. In the winter of the same year, he won the gold medal of the Lu Yi Creative Year. 1947, he directed the opera "Fire" performed by the Harbin Songjiang Provincial Literary and Industrial Troupe, which was commended by the Northeast Bureau. 1948, he became the editor and director of the Northeast Film Studio, when there were only eight directors in the base area. In 1949 Gan began work on the feature film Scenes from Inner Mongolia, which won the prize at the 1951 Karlovy Vary Film Festival, and in 1954 he directed Shajiadian Grain Station, an adaptation of the novel Bronze Wall and Iron Wall by the famous writer Liu Qing. In the winter of 1955, he became the expert assistant and head of the teaching and research team of the film directing course taught by Soviet director B.G. Ivanov. In the summer of 1956, he became the first head teacher of the directing department, pioneering the teaching of film directing in China. In October 1957, he became the chief director and scriptwriter of the Sino-Soviet co-production The Wind Comes from the East, and in 1961 he was awarded the title of professor by the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Higher Education. From 1961 to 1962, he was transferred to Beijing Film Studio as a director, and in 1964 he adapted and directed Xiao Er Hei Marriage (in collaboration with Shi Yifu), and in 1965 he directed the stage documentary Ticket House Story. After a hiatus during the Cultural Revolution, he directed the feature film The Boiling Mountains in 1975 and participated in the Pula Film Festival in Yugoslavia in 1978, returning to the Film Academy in the summer of 1978 as director of the screenwriting course and leading a film delegation to the Moscow Film Festival in 1983. In 1985, he was invited to be a consultant for the Inner Mongolia television series Wang Jingzhai. In 1989, Changchun Film Studio presented him with a certificate of honour for his "dedication to the prosperity and prosperity of the cradle of new Chinese cinema". "In 1994, he was awarded the "Special Government Allowance" by the State Council.