Chi zi
Hee Young Pyun & JIAJUN OSCAR Zhang
China | 2021 | 18 min
World premiere
Language : Chinese
Subtitles : English, French
A traveller visits his childhood city, in a former oil drill- ing area in Northern China, which he then thought of has the “centre of the universe”. Haunted by his memories, he gradually loses himself in a dreamlike space, going from an ultra-modern city to a ghost town where he himself can no longer differentiate between what is real or imaginary. A hybrid film of rare beauty.
A traveller visits his hometown in northern China, in an area formerly dedicated to oil drilling where the resources have since dried up. What he then thought was the “centre of the universe”—a centre he never used to leave—is now emptied of its inhabitants, workers who have emigrated to the South. Recounted to a friend, the memories of his childhood with his father blend with images of the journey, which gradually transforms into a dreamlike drifting between hyper-urbanised spaces and others left abandoned—where he himself is no longer sure of what is real or imaginary. Shot in an ultra-modern city and an adjacent ghost town, If You See her, Say Hello is a hybrid film on the remnants of the past and the splendour of the present, surely also destined for ruin. A maze between documentary and fiction on the traces of a young man who dives back into the places and times of his childhood, when he used to walk along the pipes up to the edge of the city to, finally, see beyond it.
Camille Kaiser
