Screenings
September 05 16:00
DSEGH HOUSE OF CULTURE
Paragate
Belgium, 2023, 72
in Mandarin w/ Arm./Eng. subtitles
Director: Jialai Wang
Cinematographer: Jialai Wang
Producer: Julie Freres
Editor: Clarisse Decroyer
Sound: Jialai Wang, Valentin Mazingarbe
Production Company: Dérives
From Belgium, Jialai Wang maintains contact via smartphone and camera with her mother and grandmother in China. When her grandmother’s health deteriorates, Jialai returns to Shanghai, but when she arrives, her grandmother has already died, and she is left alone with her mother. A devout Buddhist, her mother seems to pay more attention to her daily prayers, Maoist past and dog Dongdong than she does to her daughter. She herself had been abandoned as a child by her own mother, when she divorced Jialai’s grandfather and moved to the city.
Jialai Wang
Born in 1990, Jialai Wang grew up with her mother in the suburbs of Shanghai. From 2016, she has studied filmmaking in Brussels at INSAS. In 2021, her short film Under the Ashoka Tree received the Best Experimental Documentary Film award at Doc. Berlin Film Festival.
Filmography
Heart to Heart (short fic., 2017), Horse Dream (short doc., 2017) Crocodile (short fic., 2018), Bouillon (short fic., 2018), Under the Ashoka Tree (short doc., 2019), Jataka (short fic., 2020), A Nap (short fic., 2022), The Green Tara Mantra (short doc., 2023), Paragate (feature doc, 2023).