Fiction

Shi ren chu chai le

Poet on a Business Trip
Ju Anqi
China 2014
103 min
V'15

In 2002, Ju Anqi made a film about a tour by the poet Shu through Xinjiang, the most western-lying, autonomous Uyghur province of China. All that we know about Shu is that he plays a poet who sends himself on a business trip – an absurd, satirical starting point that sets the tone for the film. For a variety of reasons, it was not until 2013 that Ju started editing the rough, lyrical material. Structured around 16 poems which he wrote on the road, Shu’s physically exhausting journey takes him along endless rocky roads, passing shabby inns and through impressive landscapes from one prostitute to the next. In its documentary authenticity, POET ON A BUSINESS TRIP is also a historic document that exudes an atmosphere of loss, providing an unsentimental yet melancholy glimpse of a country in transition and a mirror for the existential irreversibility of time.

In the presence of Ju Anqi.

Credits
  • Ju Anqi
  • Ju Anqi
  • Xiao Bao
  • Wang Kang
  • Li Yuan
  • Ma Yuanyuan
Trench Film Group

Trench Film Group

DCP
bw
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