re:assemblage collective

花花世界 /
HUAHUA'S DAZZLING WORLD AND ITS MYRIAD TEMPTATIONS /
HUAHUA SHIJIE

Directed by Daphne Xu
Canada, USA · 2022 · 82'00

"We discover Huahua crouching in a bare room, washing clothes and dishes in a basin. Every day, she also has to cook for a demanding husband. Between two household chores, she goes out to dance in a square, telephone in hand, and livestreams videos on the Kuaishou social network, popular with rural Chinese. The local shopkeepers pay her to liven up their store entrances and announce the promotions of the day. The show continues at every opportunity at home, where all family members are called on to produce ever more content. This is the story of a brutal clash between age-old domination and the latest technologies enabling the commodification of people. Huahua seems caught between two tyrannies: one patriarchal the other algorithmic. Not only must she exhaust herself peeling, slicing, scrubbing, but she also wears herself out creating popular entertainment. Using her caring camera to offer an oblique view of Huahua’s achievements, Daphne Xu sets up a striking confrontation between the materiality of Huahua’s existence and the filtered images that smooth her features with virtual make-up. The glazed and sugary world of digital illusion serves to reveal and convey reality in all its harshness." – Olivia Cooper-Hadjian, Cinéma du Réel

Daphne Xu is a Chinese Canadian artist and filmmaker exploring the politics and poetics of place. Her practice engages observations of the everyday and of contested landscapes [↗]

― North American Premiere ―

― Previous and Upcoming Screenings ―
World Premiere at Cinéma du Réel March 2022 · Mimesis Documentary Festival August 2022

花花世界 / HUAHUA'S DAZZLING WORLD AND ITS MYRIAD TEMPTATIONS / HUAHUA SHIJIE

花花世界 /
HUAHUA'S DAZZLING WORLD AND ITS MYRIAD TEMPTATIONS /
HUAHUA SHIJIE