Nostalgia 他乡 - Film Screening and Director's Q&A

This event will feature a 90-minute film screening of  'Nostalgia 他乡' followed by a bilingual Q&A session with Director, Li Jie in English and Chinese.

Synopsis

There was once a strange town in Hunan, China. In the 1980s, most of the rural areas in China didn't even know what a car was, but this town already had its own fleet of vehicles. It was a "fashionable" town where the cinema would show the latest movies as soon as they came out. Despite being situated in a remote mountainous area, the young people in the village dressed fashionably. The town was in a poor county, but when its residents went to Guangdong province, they were respected and considered "wealthy".

This town was called "Meitian." However, in the early 1990s, most of its residents seemed to leave the town overnight, and nobody knew where they had gone. Nostalgia tells the story of this southern Chinese town that has undergone an industrial transformation. Nearly 100,000 people from all over China had come to Meitian to work for a loss-making enterprise, but they were eventually scattered throughout the world.

在中国湖南曾经存在着一个奇怪的小镇，上个世纪八十年代，中国绝大部分农村甚至不知道汽车是何物，而小镇上早就有了自己的车队。它曾经是一个“时尚”小镇，这里的电影院会第一时间放映最新上映的电影；这里偏居一隅，山路十八弯，年轻人却穿着时尚；小镇坐落在贫困县，但是这里的居民即便去到广东也受人尊敬，并被认为是“有钱人”，这个小镇叫做“梅田”。然而，在九十年代初期，似乎在一夜之间，大部分居民搬离了小镇，不知道他们去了哪里。《他乡》展示的是一个经历过产业转型的中国南方小镇的众生相，前前后后有近十万来自全国各地的人来到这个煤矿小镇，为一个持续亏损的企业而劳碌一生，最终又散落在世界各地的故事。

About the Director

Li Jie is a lecturer in the College of Arts at Hunan Normal University, China, and is currently a visiting scholar at the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at SOAS, University of London. She is also a film director and the founder of Sanjiang Film Workshop. Her documentary film Nostalgia entered the competition at the 18^th Chinese Youth Film Week,  South Europe International Film Festival and Beijing College Student Film Festival and won Best Picture of the Year at the 18^th Vision Youth Awards in 2021. Her short film "Survivors" won the Best Film Award at the Chongqing Youth Film Exhibition. It was also featured at multiple film festivals, including the Beijing College Student Film Festival.

李婕现为湖南师范大学文学院教师，伦敦大学亚非学院东亚系访问学者。同时她也是一位电影导演，影视工作室三江影视创办人。她导演的纪录长片《他乡》入围华语青年影像论坛、南欧国际电影节、北京大学生电影节, 并获得2021年“半夏的纪念”年度作品奖；剧情短片《幸存者》获重庆青年电影展最佳影片，并入围北京大学生电影节等多个电影节。

Registration

This event is open to the public and free to attend, however registration is required. Complete this form to register. Please note that this seminar is taking place on campus and will not be recorded or live-streamed.

• Chair: Dr Xiaoning Lu, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, SOAS University of London.
• Organiser: SOAS China Institute
• Contact email: sci@soas.ac.uk