Documentary Screening:CHAIQIAN (DEMOLITION)

Admission:10rmb 

Director:J.P. Sniadecki 
Country:U.S.A 
Total Running Time: 62 mins 

Filmed on a worksite in the center of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in western China, Chaiqian (Demolition) is a cinematic portrait of migrant labor, urban space, and the ephemeral connection between film-subject and filmmaker. Attending first to the transforming worksite – including the demands of physical labor and the relationship between human and machine – the film gradually shifts focus to the group of thirty men and women who have come from the countryside to work in this ever-changing urban landscape. The workers share jokes, meals, and evening strolls through the city, all with the filmmaker in tow. Whether on the worksite or in Chengdu's main square, they encounter a range of reactions from the city residents, from friendly curiosity to aggressive suspicion. With formal rigor and careful composition, Chaiqian (Demolition) explores these interactions between members of China’s “floating population,” the city’s residents, and the filmmaker himself, offering a meditation on class, urban change, and cinema itself. 

Production Credits 

J.P. Sniadecki – Camera, Sound, Editing Ernst Karel – Post-production Sound Mix Year of Production: 2008 Location: Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Language: Mandarin Chinese, Sichuanese, and English 
Festival Screenings 2011 Contro-Sguardi Ethnographic Film Festival - "Best Film" Award 2010 Sardinia International Ethnographic Film Festival – “Most Innovative Film” Award 2010 Athens International Ethnographic Film Festival 2010 American Anthropological Association Film Screenings 2010 XIX International Festival of Ethnological Film, Serbia 2010 Punto De Vista Film Festival (International Competition) 2009 Cinéma du Réel – Joris Ivens Award (International Competition) 2009 Doc Buenos Aires Film Festival 2009 Harvard Film Archive 2008 Vienna International Film Festival 2008 Shadow Festival for the Creative Documentary 2008 3rd Beijing Independent Film Festival