The first part of the Youth trilogy about Chinese textile workers follows young people who leave their villages to work in the center of children’s clothing production in Zhili.
Wang Bing’s ambitious documentary project Youth reconfirmed his status as a chronicler of contemporary China who captures a reality very different from the «Chinese dream.» During five years working on this project (2014–2019), his crew shot over 2,600 hours of footage, of which almost ten have made it into the final cut. The entire trilogy is only a little shorter than a full working day of the film’s protagonists. This radical duration allows the film to convey the experience of monotonous labour and to present the protagonists as ethically and sincerely as possible.
The first part of the trilogy introduces the textile industry cluster of Zhili in eastern Huzhou, 150 kilometers from Shanghai. The area is filled with production facilities and dormitories and has about 20,000 workshops, attracting 300,000 seasonal migrant workers from villages along the Yangtze every year. They are all aged around 20 and they work tirelessly to earn money for a wedding, a child, a house or to start their own business. Their days in the noisy workshops and run-down dorms are filled with rivalry, new relationships and friendships and sometimes conflicts, tiredness and aspiration.
Youth (Spring) premiered in the main competition of the 76th Cannes Film Festival.
The film will be screened in Chinese with Russian subtitles.
Youth (Spring)
Director: Wang Bing
France, Netherlands, Luxembourg, 2023. 212 min
18+