SOME MANIFESTATIONS OF THE SOUTH
DIRECTED BY ZHIYI WANG
UNITED KINGDOM, CHINA // 2020
16 MINS
A young man who lives in south China runs an errand service: visiting and cleaning ancestors' cemeteries of his clients on their behalf on festivals and anniversaries. He received a special assignment just after he decided to wind up this business.
Reflective Encounters
“A sense of loneliness haunts Some Manifestations of the South, a slow-burn drama about a young man in China who works cleansing graves on behalf of the families of the departed, live streaming and recording his work as he goes. Opening with a scene shot entirely through the phone of the protagonist before cutting to the wider world of the film, this shift between digital and physical shows a stark difference in atmosphere, encapsulating one of the film’s overall themes - the growing disparity between technology and tradition.
Director Zhiyi Wang was a street photographer before moving into filmmaking, and his eye for striking image composition can be seen in the photography of Some Manifestations of the South. This may also explain his lingering gaze that, in some moments, slows the film’s pacing down considerably. Observational cinema depends on a firm sense of time, and this depiction of small-town isolation sometimes feels slightly too restrained, and cautious rather than calm.
The film’s sense of solemnity is resonant and heartfelt; it’s always great to see contemporary small-town narratives given space to bloom.”
— Malaika Kegode
Filmmaker Q&A
A Q&A with filmmakers from The Familiar is Metaphysical programme at Encounters Film Festival 2021.
Filmmakers - Zhiyi Wang (Some manifestations of the South), Rubén González (Once Familiar) and Barbara Lervig (Where Do We Go?)
Hosted by Ren Scateni, Encounters Head of Programme.
Director’s Statement
I left my hometown with my family when I was a child. Since then, I only visit my hometown once a year for the most solemn traditional custom: grave sweeping and ancestor worship. This short film is my attempt to visualise the silhouette of my hometown in a calm and restrained way.
I infused some of my observations and reflections on the current small towns in China, including the relationship between people, the impact of technology on traditional culture, and the traditional beliefs in spirituality. The reason why people leave or plan to leave is an implicit background, which might be the biggest background in China today: uneven development in different regions.
An observational cinema, accompanied by some bold and contradictory experiments, is my expectation of this film. The pursuit of the unity of form and content is also one of the core purposes of creating this film, by exploring the creative space of being both the director and the cinematographer.
Filmmaker Bio
Before Zhiyi entered London Film School and experienced how enjoyable the directing and creative narrative shooting were, he had been a street photographer.
LFS trained him into a filmmaker, more precisely, a director and cinematographer. Incorporate his engaging visual experience into narrative, his fascination with observation and randomness is now a potent supplement to his creation rather than the only source.