Moderator: Liu Shu

In January, UCCA Art Cinema’s Indie Film Forum presents Ghost Town and Street Life, two outstanding documentaries by director Zhao Dayong.

Ghost Town (2008) is a three-part documentary that reveals – through the story of Zhiziluo, a small town in Yunnan Province – how the rural hinterland has been left behind by the Chinese economic miracle. A former county capital, Zhiziluo became a ghost town after the county capital was relocated, leaving only empty streets, abandoned shops and unemployed villagers, many of whom are of the Lisu and Nu minorities. In the first part of the film, “Voices,” we meet a father-son duo of elderly preachers who argue over the future of their village church; “Recollections” documents two young lovers driven apart by harsh financial realities; “Innocence” is about a twelve-year-old boy, abandoned by his family, who resorts to scavenging the hillsides to feed himself. A.O. Scott of The New York Times called Ghost Town “a miniature epic of the everyday.”

Street Life (2006) documents the lives and struggles of rural migrants who scavenge along Shanghai’s Nanjing Road. Ostracized or ignored by Shanghai residents, these “invisible men” are a reminder of the legions of forgotten and downtrodden who move to China’s thriving cities in the hope of finding a better life.

1.21 19:00

Ghost Town

2008. China. Zhao Dayong.120 mins . Chinese & English subtitles

Official Selection at New York Film Festival(2009)

Official Selection at Torino International Film Festival (2009)

Exhibited at Museum of Modern Art, New York (2010)

1.23 16:00

Street Life

2007. China. Zhao Dayong.113 mins.Chinese & English subtitles

Jury Prize at China Documentary Film Festival(2007)

City of Rome Prize, Rome Asiatica Film Mediale(2007)

Screening at Vienna Film Festival(2006)

Synopses

Ghost Town

Zhiziluo is a ghost town full of life.

Lisu and Nu minority villagers squat in the abandoned halls of this remote former communist county seat, where Cultural Revolution slogans fade into the shadows of the old city hall, and a blank white figure of Chairman Mao gazes out silently to the wild mountain wilderness of the Salween River Valley in China’s southwest Yunnan province.

The film is arranged into three sections：voices, recollections and innocence. Each deals with various aspects of the lives of the Nu and Lisu occupants of this ghost town.

“Innocence” tells the story of Yuehan, the pastor of the local Christian church, and his 87 year-old father, John the Elder, a formerly jailed Lisu pastor who was among the first to study with Western missionaries before they were expelled by the Communist Party in 1957. “Innocence” reveals both the personal rift between Yuehan and his father as well as questions over the past and future of the church.

“Recollections” is a story about two young lovers faced with substantial cultural and economic obstacles. The young man, Pu Biqiu, must decide whether to leave Zhiziluo for brighter prospects in the city, and his girlfriend faces the possibility of being sold by her father into marriage on China’s wealthier east coast to help the family with its financial woes.

“Innocence”is the story of 12 year-old Lisu boy Ah Long, who lives alone in the ghost town and idles his days away with youthful games. After playing with the ghosts of Lisu tradition (the boys revel in a traditional Lisu excorcism), Ah Long hurries off to church.

Director’s Statement

When China took the brutal path of the Cultural Revolution, it lost sight of the most fundamental understanding of the value of human life. In the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, as Chinese busied themselves with becoming materially prosperous to the point of sacrificing even their own well-being, they once again lost sight of the cultural and spiritual meaning of life – and what little was left of our culture again faced extinction.
As our past has been erased, our history has become mere legend. In this film I wanted to explore the idea of these lost histories and ravaged cultures, and by extension my own cultural identity, by delving into the lives and spirit of the abandoned city.

Street Life

Nanjing Road is a place of brilliance and amusement in a city dazzling with China’s surging economic growth. But in the back streets, migrants are busy scrounging in the garbage bins, through rubbish left behind by the bustling crowds, to make ends meet. In order to better understand this city, we should begin by looking at their lives.

Director’s Statement

I cannot shrink away from the powerful impact the flesh and blood facts have had on my spirit. Ultimately I must resort to a strong subjectivity to explain my times, and we must examine together this society in which we live.

Director’s Bio

After graduating from China’s Lu Xun Art Academy in 1992, where he specialized in oil painting, Zhao worked for a number of years as a professional artist and advertising director, first in Beijing and later in Guangzhou. He was also founding editor of Culture & Morals, a now deceased journal for the contemporary arts in China. Zhao began exploring the medium of digital video in 2002. His first documentary film, Street Life, premiered at Austria’s Viennale in October 2006, and screened the next year at Germany’s Globale Film Festival and China’s YunFest. Zhao’s second documentary film, Ghost Town, a collage of stories that take place in the former government seat of Zhiziluo in remote northwestern Yunnan province, was given an Independent Spirit Award at the 5th China Documentary Film Festival held in Beijing in May 2008, officially selected in New York Film Festival, 2009.

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