Features

Wan mei xian zai shi

Present.Perfect.
Zhu Shengze
United States, Hong Kong 2019
124 min
V'19

Nearly half a billion people in China are involved in live streaming, a phenomenon that has grown exponentially since 2016 and attracted the attention of the authorities. PRESENT. PERFECT. composes found footage from different sources and creates its discourse via skilled, sensitive editing. By gently directing the broadcast, Zhu allows both society and an era to reveal themselves, making clear the ephemerality of the present and the urgency of communication.
Improvised artists, performers, and preachers interact with an invisible audience, all trying to forge a connection with the outside world. “Now that we are watching live streaming, we want to be happy”, someone says, and this emotional connection is the film’s inherent strength. Some anchors show skills, but also their own disabilities: a 30-year-old boy in a child’s body, a man with a deformity getting by as a pavement artist, a young girl imprisoned by a wheelchair. Others train the camera on the daily details of their work: a seamstress employed in a factory, the owner of a bulldozer, a farmer just starting out. All are ready to show a small part of their world, trying to find a way to survive and to share. And when the latest streamer performs to the sounds of Gangnam Style, nobody looks at him, they just look towards the screen. (Eva Sangiorgi)

In the presence of Zhengfan Yang (producer).
With NA LI.

 

Credits
  • Aymeric Dupas
  • Shengze Zhu
Burn the Film, Tender Madness Pictures

Burn the Film

DCP
Farbe/SW
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