At Home in the World

D: Wu Wenguang

Sat, May 13, 2006
10 pm
Admission: Single screening 5 €, concessions 3 €, Evening ticket: 8 €, concessions 5 €. Ticket includes admission to the exhibition.

Curator's Night: Wu Wenguang

Wu Wenguang, At Home in the World, Copyright: Promo

China 1995, 90 min., English subtitles

A year after he made Bumming in Beijing, Wu Wenguang visited his main figures in Austria, France, Italy and the USA. The desire to escape everything, which was the most compelling feeling while they were still living in Beijing, has meanwhile faded and they are now confronted with the dynamics of emigration. Wu asks what it means to feels deserted by one’s own country and how it is when one reacts by deserting it in turn: ‘Are you still the people you used to be? What does it mean to be an artist in a foreign country?’ By becoming personally more involved in this film than he had been in his first, even to the point of including discussions with his girlfriend, who accompanied him on the trip, Wu creates a supremely intimate atmosphere which even involves the viewer.

Followed by a talk between the audience and the director.


Curator’s Night: Wu Wenguang – The real China

Film-maker Wu Wenguang belongs to a generation that has set itself the task of showing ways of living on the margins of legality – as in his two films that portray young artists who are staying in Beijing without a work permit. They feel that it is more important to determine their own lives than to live a secure, officially sanctioned existence.