The capitalist abyss through the eyes of one of today’s greatest documentary directors
Individual and collective stories unfold in Zhili’s textile workshops, becoming ever more dramatic as the seasons go by. Fu Yun keeps making mistakes and is mocked by her colleagues. Xu Wanxiang can’t find his notebook, without which his boss refuses to pay him his wages. From atop a passageway, a group of workers watch their indebted boss beat up a supplier. In another workshop, the boss has taken off with all the money. The workers find themselves alone, robbed of the fruits of their labour. Hu Siwen tells the story of the 2011 Zhili riots: police brutality, imprisonment, and fear. After bitter negotiations, the workers return home to celebrate the New Year.
After a first part screened at the Luxfilmfest in 2024, along wiht a masterclass by Wang Bing, the Chinese documentary director continues his trilogy entitled Youth, a plunge into the daily lives of young workers who toil in textile factories. Without ever turning a blind eye to the harsh conditions prevailing in these places forgotten by the rest of the world.
Screenplay
Wang Bing
Cinematographer
Liu Xianhui
Song Yang
Ding Bihan
Shan Xiaohui
Maeda Yoshitaka
Wang Bing
Sound
Ranko Paukovic
Production
House on Fire
Gladys Glover
CS Production Coproduction : Arte France Cinéma
Les Films Fauves
Volya Films
Eastern-Lion Pictures and Culture Media Co.
Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation
Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains
« Le film de Wang Bing est justement là pour rendre cet enfer ordinaire vraiment mémorable. Pour inscrire dans nos yeux et dans la conscience collective ces vies lointaines, ce cauchemar refoulé d’un monde ouvrier où l’on croit voir s’éterniser les esclaves des débuts de l’ère industrielle. »
Frédéric Strauss Télérama 13/08/2024
Special Mention, International Competition, Junior Jury, FIPRESCI Prize, Locarno Film Festival, 2024, ch
Best Documentary, Valladolid International Film Festival, 2024, es
Wang Bing
Born in Xi’an in 1967, Wang Bing studied photography at the Shenyang Fine Arts School and then joined the Film Academy. In the 1990s, he earned his living as a cameraman and assistant. In 2002, he directed West of the tracks, a nine-hour documentary on the demise of a huge industrial zone in China. After that, he continued to tackle subjects that were difficult to say the least: “anti-Rightist” repression, extreme poverty, life in a psychiatric hospital… In 2017, he won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival for Mrs. Fang. In 2021, the Cinémathèque française will devote a retrospective to his work. In 2023, the Cannes Film Festival presents two new films by the director in official selection: Spring in competition, and Man in Black in special screening.
