In Shanghai

A very personal portrait by last year’s Tiger-Award winner, Lou Ye, of his own city of Shanghai. After a caressing glimpse of the beautiful light on the back of a sleeping woman, he heads into the city with his video camera. A city that is subject to great changes thanks to its economic openness to the West, but where the past is still tangibly and visibly present. A view of the setting sun behind a beautiful temple is blocked by the forest of telephone cables – but the new cable landscape also has its own beauty. Lou Ye shows us succinctly a city with great contrasts: the nouveau riches show their priceless wedding gown in the Park, others search the rubbish for old newspapers to use as toilet paper. Many look suspiciously at the man with the camera, not just the man who is relieving himself in public on the side of a boat, also the men wearing leather jackets who roam the street at night and make sure this diary ends like an action film. It would appear to be a risky business, shooting a video diary on the wrong side of the tracks in a port. (GjZ)
Lou Ye (1965, Shanghai) studied film directing in Beijing. He worked as producer and assistant director on various productions and made several short films. In 1994 he made his first feature film, Weekend Lover. Last year he won a Tiger Award in Rotterdam with Suzhou River.