An Asian Ghost Story Film Screening+ Q&A | 22 May 2024 | 16:15 | P.J. Veth Building (Leiden)

Event Description

We are delighted to host a screening of this award-winning short film by artist, filmmaker and researcher Bo Wang. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Bo, followed by Summer Drinks at Pakhuis Leiden. The screening concludes the day’s events of of our annual Advisory Board meeting.

Since premiering last year, the hybrid artist documentary An Asian Ghost Story (2023, 37 min) has been on a festival run picking up awards at CPH:DOX, DOK Leipzig, Festival Entrevues Belfort, Sharjah Film Platform, Arkipel, Image Forum Festival, Curtocircuito International Film Festival, Brive Film Festival, and a special mention for the inaugural e-flux Film Award. The film explores the haunting memories of Asia’s late 20th-century modernisation, focusing on the 1965 “Communist Hair Ban” by the United States. Acting as a gateway between Mao’s China and the Western market, Hong Kong facilitated the trade. However, the 1965 U.S. embargo on “Asiatic hair” aimed to disrupt currency flow to Communist China, leading to a shift in the wig industry reshaping East Asia’s light industry landscape. In the films, wigs, crucial for post-war Asian economy, particularly in Hong Kong’s export-oriented industrialization during the 1960s, begin to embody the imperial past.  Through tales of movement, diaspora and migration, the project delves into Hong Kong’s role as a transient space mediating and filtering the interaction between different spheres, and the relationship between US imperialism and East Asia during the Cold War era.

Bo Wang is an artist, filmmaker, and researcher based in Amsterdam, as well as a member of ReCNTR’s Advisory board. His works have been exhibited internationally, including at the MoMA, Guggenheim Museum, Garage Museum, CPH:DOX, IFFR, Visions du Réel, LUX, Open City Documentary Festival, Courtisane, Seoul Mediacity Biennale, Sonic Acts, Eye Filmmuseum, Sesc_Videobrasil, Sharjah Film Platform, among others. He is a recipient of major international awards, including New:Vision at CPH:DOX, Golden Dove at DOKLeipzig, O.F.F. Prize at Sesc_Videobrasil, Best Doc Short at Sharjah Film Platform, etc. He received a fellowship from the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar in 2013, and was an artist-in-residency at the ACC-Rijksakademie from 2017 to 2018, as well as at NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore in 2016. He is a PhD candidate at ASCA, University of Amsterdam.