My friend Siok Siok Tan from my undergrad alma mater is screening her independent documentary film "Boomtown Beijing" on April 20 in Beijing, in which she tracks the hopes and dreams of individuals in Beijing as the city gears up for the Olympics.
Here's a blurb from The Hollywood Reporter:
The 70-minute film tells the story of three different Beijing residents working to make their personal Olympic dreams come true: an 11-year-old boy wants to beat the odds to become an Olympics torch-bearer; a street sweeper dreams of staging his own mass Olympics countdown performance; and an aging, blind athlete makes one last stab at a Paralympics medal before he retires from competition.
"The film is an attempt to depict the Beijing Olympics on a human scale," Tan told The Hollywood Reporter. "It looks at everyday life in Beijing and the dreams and aspirations of ordinary Beijing residents the summer before the Olympics come to town."
"I also wanted to see if I could find a middle ground between the polarized perspectives of East and West, a point of view that would be engaging to audiences around the world," she adds.
I like that sentiment. Here's the trailer:
When I see it, I can't help but think of a similar film that might have been shot right before the 1988 Seoul Olympics, in terms of the "dreaming" about personal and national futures that the Olympics promised; even the controversy over human rights vs. the progressive change that a huge, international event such as an Olympic games might bring is a major common element.
I know the documentary film "Sanggyedong Olympics" dealt with one aspect of this tension, but in a much more sharply critical and heavy way. It was, in the end, a very different kind of film. I wonder if there are any other similar works that might be a good companion piece to perhaps be shown with "Boomtown Beijing"? I'd be up for helping out with a screening! Somehow, I think the Korean audience should be able to connect with this film in a much more direct way than in other countries, where recent Olympic games were not veritable defining moments in terms of history, as well as both personal and national pride.
