In the wake of the cancellation of the Beijing Independent Documentary Film Festival, which was to hold its 8th annual edition next month, the festival's artistic director, Zhu Rikun, has resigned from the festival's foundation. He has also closed his production house, Fanhall Studio, which for the last ten years has promoted independent documentary filmmaking in China.

Zhu Rikun has worked on some of the most significant independent Chinese documentaries of recent years, among them the excoriating work "Karamay" (2010), in which director Xu Xin carries out a forensic examination of a fire that broke out in the far western Chinese province of Xinjiang in 1994. In that tragedy some 323 people (including 288 children) died in the Karamay Friendship Hall after being told to remain in their seats as the fire raged, allowing Chinese government officials in the audience to evacuate first. Zhu also produced the award-winning "Petition" (2009). In that film, director Zhao Liang recorded the stories of a ragtag band of petitioners who traveled to Beijing, seeking the right of appeal supposedly extended to them under China's legal system.

Despite their importance as chroniclers of the current age, documentary filmmakers — and their films — have, at best, a marginal existence in China. No independently-made documentary ever wends its way into the mainstream media in China, circulating instead on DVD and enjoying the occasional, casual screening at a café or club. In this environment, therefore, documentary festivals serve as a crucial platform for the promotion of such films.

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Aside from the Beijing festival, which was canceled last week, there is only one other serious festival for documentaries — Yunfest, which is held every two years in Kunming, the capital of the southern Chinese province of Yunnan. Yunfest steamed ahead for its fifth edition last month, but signs of trouble were evident even before it drew to a close. During the festival, Yunfest's Web site was suddenly shut down, as was that of Zhu Rikun's Fanhall Studio.

Today, both sites remain offline, joined by that of the Li Xianting Film Fund, which promoted the Beijing Independent Documentary Festival. As Zhu Rikun explained last week, the decision to cancel Beijing's documentary festival was made by the organizers themselves. "The overall situation was tense, and we had received a lot of pressure," Zhu said. "We worried that the films to be shown would meet some problems in this environment and decided to cancel it."

According to Zhu Rikun's friends, he has now returned to his hometown in the south of China. In so doing, he follows the time-honored approach of Chinese artists and intellectuals faced with oppression throughout the centuries — in times of trouble it is best to get as far away from the capital as possible.