拆·迁 Chaiqian (Demolition)

2008 / HD /  62 mins

Synopsis

Filmed on a worksite in the center of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in western China, Chaiqian (Demolition) is a cinematic portrait of migrant labor, urban space, and the ephemeral connection between film-subject and filmmaker.  Attending first to the transforming worksite – including the demands of physical labor and the relationship between human and machine – the film gradually shifts focus to the group of thirty men and women who have come from the countryside to work in this ever-changing urban landscape.  The workers share jokes, meals, and evening strolls through the city, all with the filmmaker in tow.  Whether on the worksite or in Chengdu's main square, they encounter a range of reactions from the city residents, from friendly curiosity to aggressive suspicion.  With formal rigor and careful composition, Chaiqian (Demolition) explores these interactions between members of China’s “floating population,” the city’s residents, and the filmmaker himself, offering a meditation on class, urban change, and cinema itself.

《拆·迁》在四川成都的一处建筑工地拍摄,这部电影描绘了进城农民工的生活、城市空间的景象以及电影导演和被拍摄对象的短暂联系。《拆·迁》首先是记录了这个不断变迁的建筑工地,以及它所映射的工人的生理需求和人与现代机械之间的关系,之后又逐渐的把它的焦点转移到这三十个从乡下来到这个地貌不断发生改变的城市里的男男女女。导演参与到这些工人们的生活里去,记录他们一起谈笑,吃饭,漫步在这城市当中的影像。不论是在工地还是在成都的中心广场,他们都和城市里的居民进行互动,这之中既有来自城市人民善意的好奇,又有挑衅的审问。《拆·迁》用其严肃、谨慎的构图探索了中国流动人口与城市居民以及导演自己的互动,给城市阶级、城市变迁以及电影本身带来了思考。

 

Selected Screenings 

2011 Contro-Sguardi Ethnographic Film Festival - "Best Film" Award

2010 Sardinia International Ethnographic Film Festival – “Most Innovative Film” Award

2010 Athens International Ethnographic Film Festival

2010 American Anthropological Association Film Screenings

2010 XIX International Festival of Ethnological Film, Serbia

2010 Punto De Vista Film Festival (International Competition)

2009 Cinéma du Réel – Joris Ivens Award (International Competition)

2009 Doc Buenos Aires Film Festival

2009 Harvard Film Archive

2008 Vienna International Film Festival

2008 Shadow Festival for the Creative Documentary

2008 3rd Beijing Independent Film Festival