Programme 1
Daphne Xu, Cambodia, China, Canada, 2024, 18 min, digital, Chinese, English, Cambodian, English subtitles and electronic Spanish subtitles.
The observational branch of direct cinema found its counterpart in the rise of reality television. The fly on the wall closely resembled the surveillance camera broadcasting 24/7 via closed-circuit systems from the interiors of buildings, entire cities, and —increasingly— planetary life through networks of satellites. The proliferation of cameras and transmission devices means that today each and every one of us finds ourselves literally “amidst the flies”.
Daphne Xu's film, Huahua's Dazzling World and Its Myriad Temptations, shows the daily life of a woman, Huahua, in the Xiong'an New Area: a rapidly developing area that will become a megacity south of Beijing. Huahua earns a living by producing images of herself that others consume on various streaming platforms. Xu's gaze is split between the domestic reality of Huahua and the filtered digital world that she projects online. The fly on the wall reinvented everyday life as a consumable product. And the lower cost of cameras has made it possible for anyone to broadcast their daily life in order to survive.
True to the tradition of direct cinema, Xu shows us the daily work without external comments or explanations, maintaining prolonged attention to the gestures, downtime, and routines that structure Huahua's life. The camera accompanies her day between domesticity and digital exposure, recording how the production of images of herself is organically integrated into her daily life.
Xu’s latest short film, Notes of a Crocodile, will open this session dedicated to the director. News of a half-built building filled with crocodiles draws a Chinese woman to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The protagonist follows the trail of a missing friend amid the noise and rubble of a city under construction.
Xavier Nueno
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