Wan Mei Xian Zai Shi

Live streaming has boomed in China and, in recent years, has become one of the most profitable industries. Alongside the myriad “Internet celebrity anchors”, it is now a popular meeting point for masses of Chinese net-citizens. These are the people that Shengze Zhu follows, people who are not searching for money or glory, but rather seeking to belong to a community that gathers them together virtually, all at the same time  t. Men and women who are disabled, socially marginalised or living far from urban centres. Rejected in real life, they are trying to exist and, above all, to connect with the world. So they film themselves, talk about their life, interact live, offer a word of welcome to those who come to watch them… These excluded people’s desire for contact, sharing and socialising finds an outlet in this world of a digitally connected hereand-now. Out of this moving and grotesque gallery of portraits proposed at the beginning of the film, characters gradually emerge and we find ourselves becoming part of their communities. The history and destiny of each one emerge and cross paths to the point that a spirit of fellowship is formed. Based on the story of these solitary existences, the film creates a cruel and engaged image of contemporary China, a much more desperate and dramatic image than the one each anchor creates in front of their smartphone for their “followers”.

Catherine Bizern