San Yuan Li (2003)

San Yuan Li, the collaborative project by Ou Ning, Cao Fei, and the members of U-thèque Organization, is a case study of the typical “urban village” phenomenon of Guangzhou in 1990s. Armed with video cameras, the crew penetrated San Yuan Li as “city flâneurs,” presented a highly stylized portrait of the village, attempting to rethink the debt of history, to document the confrontation and reconciliation between the newly urbanization and the patriarchal-clan-based traditional community, as well as the weird architectures and cultural landscape emerging from this previously rural area. At the end, all the colored footages were eidted into a piece of black-and-white video poetry. The project was exhibited in the 50th Venice Biennale for the first time, and then screened worldwide.

Released Jan. 2, 2003 40 min None+

Genres: Documentary

Keywords: imdb.visual-essay, imdb.economic-development, imdb.urbanization, imdb.guangzhou-china, imdb.mandarin, imdb.globalization, imdb.experimental-film

Country: China
Languages: Mandarin