Documentary Program

Sunday, September 21 7pm, LPAC Cinema

Two documentaries of a planned trilogy entitled “Tomorrow” exploring our collective anxiety in the post-industrial age. The first looks at Post-Mao era China; in the second Guo’s camera turns from East to West.

Once Upon a Time Proletarian  曾经的无产者 (2009, 76 min.) 

A subjective anatomy of China in the post Marxist era. 12 chapters framed by children’s stories show people from different classes: an old peasant who has lost his land, a millionaire, a young migrant who came to the city to wash cars, a weapons factory worker who wishes Mao was still alive to save the country, and young kids whose dream is to become famous western artists. The film contemplates a vast and complex society whose citizens are searching for new beliefs and identities after the country’s great revolutionary days.

Late at Night: Voices of Ordinary Madness (2013, 76 min.)

This essay film focuses on Britain’s mean streets and its dwellers –street gangs, beggars, working class heroes, bankers, and preachers, most of them excluded from society and displaced in the newly gentrified London East End. Quotes, archival footage, and media coverage help construct an image of today’s Britain that leads us to question our future under the institutional madness of global capitalism.