Still Life - SANXIA HAOREN

We are in the city of Fenjge, in the Valley of the Three Gorges, upstream the largest dam in the world. Sam Ming has travelled to meet his former wife and his daughter whom he last saw sixteen years ago. Today, the building, the street and the area where they lived have become a green patch engulfed by the dam waters. In the same city, Shan Hong is looking for her husband who disappeared two years ago. In the heart of a gigantic construction site which lead to the destruction of hundreds of villages and the displacement of the population, a man and a woman are searching for their past, searching for their lost love. We can see the traditional China with its mountains, clouds and rain, a China we know through painting.

“There is this natural beauty on one side, and a kind of beauty of destruction on the other side. The first time I saw the demolition of the buildings, I really felt that it meant the end of something and the beginning of a new era.” Jia Zhang-ke.