Mr. Zhang Believes

Qiu Jiongjiong’s brilliant fiction-documentary hybrid is based on the life of Zhang Xianchi, a so-called ‘rightist’ persecuted for his unorthodox beliefs. But Qiu turns it into something extraordinary: a mixture of first-person testimony, filmed theatre, historical fantasy, and social realist drama, interspersed with vivid surreal tableaux.

Born into a Nationalist Kuomintang family in the 1930s, Zhang became a progressive young ‘leftist’ and Communist Party supporter, after betraying his Nationalist father. Zhang joined the Communist Youth League and attended military college. Two years later, stigmatised by his family background, he lost his job and turned to journalism. In 1958, he was sentenced to five years’ re-education through labour.

Qiu’s sharply photographed black-and-white images transmute Zhang’s story to a mythic theatrical scale, where intimate, heart-breaking family drama, and the historical (Chairman Mao and Generalissimo Chiang make cameo appearances) mutually resonate. Incisive political cinema and essential viewing.

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Available on Festival Scope Pro from 26 January 9:00 CET to 14 February 9:00 CET