38th edition 2023 short & midlength films
An Asian Ghost Story
Bo Wang
In every wig resides a ghost from the imperial past : departing from a 1965 United States embargo on the hair trade, known as the “Communist Hair Ban” the film is about haunting memories of Asia’s late 20th-century modernization.
Bo Wang is an artist, a filmmaker and a researcher based in the Netherlands. His works were exhibited throughout the world, at the Guggenheim, the New York MOMA, and the Image Forum Festival in Tokyo. His feature film Many Undulating Things was recently screened at Visions du Réel. An Asian Ghost Story won the New:Vision Award at CPH:DOX in 2023.
- Scénario
- Bo WANG
- Photographie
- Yavuz Selim ISLER
- Son
- Jeroen GOEIJERS
- Montage
- Bo WANG
- Production
- Ruoyao Jane YAO
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A word from the selection committee :
Part experimental, historical documentary, part anthropological fiction, An Asian Ghost Story focuses on Hong-Kong’s wig industry to shed light on ghosts; ghosts from the stories of female factory workers, and the more insidious ghosts of capitalism and colonialism. From the moment the title appears, in such a typical font, in VHS picture definition, the film pays a subtle, playful homage to Hong-Kong and its film culture; which used to matter but seems, much like its territory, to be stuck in an interzone with increasingly tight borders.
- Victor Bournerias