A film by Li Ning / dGenerate Collection at Icarus Films
With groundbreaking honesty, performance artist Li Ning turns his life into art in this epic work of experimental documentary. For five grueling years, Li Ning documents his struggle to achieve success as an avant-garde artist while contending with the pressures of modern life in China. He is caught between two families: his wife, son and mother, whom he can barely support; and his enthusiastic but disorganized guerilla dance troupe. Li’s chaotic life becomes inseparable from the act of taping it, as if his experiences can only make sense on screen. Tape shatters documentary conventions, utilizing a variety of approaches, including guerilla documentary, experimental street video, even CGI. Much like Jia Zhangke’s Platform, Tape captures a decade’s worth of artistic aspirations and failures, while breaking new ground in individual expression in China.
Select Film Festivals:
Official Selection, Rotterdam International Film Festival, Bright Futures
Official Selection, Reel China Film Festival at New York University
Availability:
Tape is currently screening at film festivals and exhibitions around the world. Interested programmers can email us at sales (at) dgeneratefilms.com or contact us here.
Tape is also available for press reviews. Inquiries can be emailed to press (at) dgeneratefilms.com or through our online contact form.
In 1980s Shanghai, a teenage boy discovers a forbidden world of love and freedom on the brink of massive historical change. 16 year-old Xiaoli lives in a communal block on Shimen Road, a close-knit neighborhood that no longer exists in Shanghai. It’s the late 1980s; while his teachers talk about China’s recovery from the devastation of the Cultural Revolution, another wave of transformation is already underway, as Xiaoli encounters Western businessmen, Coca Cola bottles and other foreign elements on the streets. The allure of new cultures and ideas sweeps through Xiaoli and the two young women closest to him. His best friend Lanmi carouses with foreigners, scandalizing the neighborhood. Lili, an idealistic classmate whom he loves, wants to quit school and join the student democracy demonstrations that have started in Beijing. Xiaoli must decide where his future lies in a world suddenly robbed of stability and innocence.
Building from his acclaimed documentary Nostalgia, which commemorated the now-demolished neighborhoods of Shanghai, Shu Haolun’s first dramatic feature vividly resurrects the experience of social and cultural awakening in China during the 1980s. Shu weaves a rich tapestry of memory using multiple devices, including still photography, richly textured cinematography, and an elaborately recreated milieu rich with characters. No. 89 Shimen Road not only vividly recalls an era of China’s history, but a crisis in values affecting its youth that resonates with the present.
Thanks for supporting independent film! Icarus Films is delighted to share these trailers from our dGenerate Collection of films from mainland China. More info: icarusfilms.com/search/all_films?collections[]=DGEN
