Zhang Suying's castle

Zhang Suying's castle

MENG Xiaowei • 2019

Duration: 01:32:03
Language: Mandarin
Subtitles: Chinese, English
Country/Region: Mainland China

This is a miracle work of one-man construction - a box. Zhang Suying, a woman of more than 60 years old, when she wandered from home, it is not known here, a person built a house like a "castle" on the idle land next to the abandoned brick kiln, which amazed everyone. The owner of the surrounding farm said that the house, which is seven or eight meters high, had been built by hand for four or five years. She retrieves her useful stones and waste building materials from a garbage pit two kilometers away, and increases her "castle" by even half a centimeter every day, even on snowy days... The film uses the technique of flashback, starting from the search for people after being demolished, escaping from rescue and finally leaving, in Zhang Suying's words: to the other side, to the high place.

AWARDS & FESTIVALS

2019 West Lake International Documentary Festival, China

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

MENG Xiaowei

MENG Xiaowei

Director

The profound inner essence of human life is the freedom of the soul, and I think her soul is separate from herself. As Camus said, “The distance between my soul and me is so distant, yet my existence is so real.” Every day of her life, she is often accompanied by gloom, sadness, insecurity, even panic and caution, and even cannot resist the life of death at any time, but she has made a sad sunshine “joke” that others regard as absurd.