Event Details
The UK Premiere of the director's cut version of 1990’s documentary <Bumming in Beijing>. The screening will be preceded by a recorded video from the director Wu Wenguang. EAST2046 Festival and Chinese Cinema Project jointly present Wu Wenguang's ground-breaking documentary, Bumming in Beijing, widely regarded as one of the founding works of Chinese independent cinema. The screening explores how the filmmakers' pioneering aesthetics and themes of urban wandering speak to contemporary experiences of cultural displacement and artistic community-building, in an Asian diasporic context. Following five young artists drifting through Beijing in the late 1980s, the film captures a generation caught between tradition and modernity, artistic ambition and economic reality. Wu Wenguang's intimate camera reveals the precarious lives of cultural workers navigating China's rapid social changes, creating a raw portrait of displacement and creative survival in a transforming metropolis. Cast: Artist collective including musicians, painter.
Programme
People
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Wu Wenguang, born in Guangzhou in 1956, is one of the founding figures of independent documentary filmmaking in China. His representative work, "Beijing Besieged by Waste", uses authentic and nuanced visual language to document the life struggles of marginalised youth, pioneering the "personal perspective" narrative style in Chinese documentaries. He graduated early from the Chinese Academy of Biography and later taught himself filmmaking, capturing overlooked groups on the fringes of society with a simple yet philosophical style. Not only does he direct and produce, but he also initiates documentary training workshops across the country, nurturing a new generation of documentary filmmakers, earning him the title of "the godfather of Chinese documentaries". In recent years, he has expanded his creative means to include writing and living, also turning the lens on himself.
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Garden Cinema
The Garden Cinema 39-41 Parker Street, Covent Garden London WC2B 5PQ