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Chinese Independent Documentary :
CIDFA023:
FLOATING
Directors: Huang Weikai
Length: 93min
Production Year: 2005
Synopsis:
The movie depicts a 30-year-old village-born vagrant singer who, while roving in big cities, was buffeted by a strong sense of restlessness both in his mental and real beings, and was finally detained and sent back to his hometown mandatorily by the government.
The current china’s economic disparity between rural areas and urban areas is so great that a large amount of rural population is flowing into urban areas; however, the Chinese government’s “Regulation on the Detention and Repatriation of Vagrants and Beggars in Cities” introduced since 1980s has made these migrant people the target of punishment and discrimination.
Yang is vagrant singer from Henan rural area; he earns his life by singing in the subways of urban business centers. Everyday he brought with him his temporary residency card and identification card to avoid being caught and detained by local police. In order to keep his work, he has to bribe the security guards whom take charge of the subways, deals circuitously with Urban Management guys, and squeezes other street artist out. From time to time, many of his friends who live just like him are detained by local police and repatriated back home, but soon after that they come back to the city and continue their drifting life. Yang, in this year of his thirty years old, has realized the break of his star dream. He has thought about to end his floating life, go back hometown and marry his first lover, but the imbroglio in his hear about old and new lovers has made his life even more chaotic. Finally, he was caught by local police when he is singing, detained, and finally send back home.
Jury's remarks on Floating:
Floating interweaves the urban love story of a singer from the countryside with China's biggest social probelm. Its broad Social perspective and maturity in editing marks it as a rare accomplishment in contemporary Chinese documentary filmmaking. This film creates an interesting structure with the question "how did we get here?" motivating the narrative. A reversed chronological procession of episodes looks refreshing. What at first seems to be a simple documentary about street performers is in fact far more thought-provoking and disturbing. At times, it is literally about life and death.
Director’s Bio:
Huang Weikai, born 1972 in China's Guangdong Province, graduated from the Chinese Art Dept. of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. In 2002 he began devoting himself to independent filmmaking.