Fortune
神禄 completion date: December 2023
TRT: 00:04:47
language: English, Cantonese, with English subtitles
format: 16mm
aspect ratio: 16:9
SynopsisThe film takes the viewer on an embodied journey moving through a space in which its existence in the real or imagined is debatable. Alike how the alleyway is a physical bridge between two main streets, the film presents a series of juxtaposed images that might seem opposing at a glance – the seer and the seen, the outside and inside, young and old, low and high, the leaving, coming, and returning – but are co-existing elements that sustain the living and breathing of the alleyway. The tactility of witnessing inherently embodied by the 16 mm celluloid is mirrored by the witnessing(s) of the tourists, the residents, the non-human subjects in the space. Via a constructed soundscape in which sonic elements from eastern spirituality find their prominence amongst real-life sounds, and through an embodied camera eye that moves freely in the geographical space of the alley, the film evokes a sense of magical realism which gives texture to the meditation on the Chinese American identity.
(Katelyn Liu, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival)
ScreeningsNOWNESS Short Film Awards 天才计划, December 2023
Slamdance Film Festival, Janurary 2024
Tiny Film Festival, April 2024
Chinese Film Festival Hamburg, April 2024
Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, April 2024
Roxie Mixtape, May 2025
Rooftop Film Festival, June 2024
The Video Art Museum at SFO International Airport, July 2024