24 City (2008)

Highly Recommended

China/Hong Kong/Japan

Feature Film/Documentary

Original Title: 二十四城记

Director: Jia Zhangke

Writers: Jia Zhangke, Zhai Yongming

Cinematographers: Yu Lik-wai, Wang Yu

Composers: Hanno Yoshihiro, Lim Giong

Cast: Joan Chen, Lü Liping, Zhao Tao

Jia’s gentle, elegiacally moving documentary – a mixture of five genuine interviews with four scripted ones – explores the lives of the workers (and their families) of a condemned aeronautics factory, which is making way for a modern high-rise housing complex named 24 City, highlighting the monumental changes that have occurred (and continue to occur) in China over the previous 50 years. Iain.Stott