Director
Wang Bing
Edition 2023
215'
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2023
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Documentary
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Dialogue:
Chinese
The harsh, almost dystopian life of workers in Chinese textile factories. Filmed by the greatest documentary filmmaker of his generation, Wang Bing. "This is hell."
Not with one film, but with two films, Wang Bing broke a five-year silence at Cannes earlier this year - exceptionally long for a director who spent the previous ten years delivering an average of one documentary a year. Thanks to features like West of the Tracks and Fengming, a Chinese Memoir, he is one of this century's most acclaimed documentarians. The two new films, Man in Black and Youth (Spring) confirm that reputation. In the latter, filmed over a six-year period, Wang offers a look at the gruelling work of employees of China's clothing-manufacturing workshops. Most are relatively young rural workers who travel several thousand kilometres just to be exploited. With a sense of detail, Wang films their labour-ridden lives in his beloved fly-on-the-wall style. 2600 hours of footage have been boiled down to a three-and-a-half-hour epic.
“The three-and-a-half-hour Cannes competition entry from the renowned documaker Wang Bing embeds with garment workers essentially living in factories. Like Frederick Wiseman, Wang is a lofty filmmaking doc deity who moves in mysterious, glacial ways, but one who sometimes performs miracles.” - The Hollywood Reporter
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Credits
Directors
Wang Bing
Director of Photography
Maeda Yoshitaka, Shan Xiaohui, Song Yang, Liu Xianhui, Ding Bihan, Wang Bing
Editors
Dominique Auvray, Xu Bingyuan, Liyo Gong
Producers
Vincent Wang, Sonia Buchman, Nicolas R. de la Mothe, Mao Hui
Co producers
Eastern-Lion Pictures and Culture Media Co., Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation, Le Fresnoy
Production studios
House on Fire, Gladys Glover, CS Production
More info
Dialogue
Chinese
Countries of production
The Netherlands, France, Luxemburg
Year
2023
Filmography
Wang Bing
Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks (1999-2003), Brutality Factory (short, 2007), Fengming, A Chinese Memoir (2007), Crude Oil (2008), Coal Money (short, 2008), Xi yang tang (short, 2009), Man with No Name (2010), The Ditch (2010), Three Sisters (2012), Alone (2013), Venice 70: Future Reloaded (2013), 'Til Madness Do Us Part (2013), Father and Son (2014), Traces (short, 2014), Ta'ang (2016), Bitter Money (2016), Mrs. Fang (2017), Dead Souls (2018), Youth (Spring) (2023), Man in Black (2023)
