SPECIAL SCREENING
Wang Bing’s Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks
May 24–25, 2004
As a special sidebar to the fifteenth-anniversary
tribute to The Hubert Bals Fund, The Department of Film and Media
presents
the New York premiere of Wang Bing’s tripartite
nine-hour documentary portrait of Tie Xi, the industrial
district in northeastern China. Once the heart of state-run
heavy industry, Tie Xi is now a scene of decay, as economic
reforms, bankruptcies, relocation, and demolition have left many
factories empty
and entire communities jobless.
Wang follows the old railway line
that bisects the industrial area to interview locals
about their precarious situation. In Rust, he spends
an entire year with one community as it copes with the disintegration
of
its village. In Remnants, he portrays children who, with no prospects
for the future, still manage to find small pleasures in everyday
life. And in Rails, he follows the old railway track past dying
factories,
visiting the people who have stayed behind.
.
2003. China. Directed by Wang Bing. In Mandarin with English subtitles.
Video.
240
min.
175
min.
130
min.
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