This year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam featured a strong lineup of contemporary experimental Chinese and Hong Kong films, including works by Peng Zuqiang, Nan Wang, and Sheungman Yim. Among them was Paris-based filmmaker Zhou Zhenyu, who brought to Rotterdam his new short film Branches from Concrete.

In the film, past, present, and future seem to collapse into one. The space of an unfinished shopping mall — a relic of the real-estate development boom and an era of early capitalist yearning — becomes the kernel of a home, a private space within the public sphere where older couples dance together and children play. Branches from Concrete is permeated by a sense of the uncanny, much like the feeling of returning to one’s hometown after years away, only to find it both familiar and strange at the same time. However, director Zhou Zhenyu avoids nostalgia — a feeling so easily exploited and commodified today — in favour of looking toward the present and possible futures.

Zhou traveled to Rotterdam with Branches from Concrete sound designer Xu Mo and one afternoon at de Doelen we sat down to talk about the film. Branches from Concrete takes the form of an experimental film, but at its core lies the tradition of home videos. Zhou Zhenyu began working on the project while visiting his parents in his hometown of Hengshui, in Hebei Province in northern China, a three-hour train ride from Beijing. Therefore, the entry point for discussing his short film was an online project he curates: ACTANTIMAGE, which consists of digitised archival home videos recorded by French families from the 1950s onward.

Maja: I noticed that your main interest seems to revolve around home videos. Not only in your short films, but also on ACTANTIMAGE , the video platform you curate. Recently, many of the films featured there have been related to Latin America.

Zhou Zhenyu (hereafter Zhou): Yes, “family” has indeed been a subject I keep returning to, because I’ve realized that the definition of family constantly changes over time.

As for ACTANTIMAGE, I wanted to create a platform dedicated to collecting, archiving, and exhibiting amateur films, while also allowing these images to continue circulating within today’s short-video ecosystems. Most of the films date from the 1950s to the 1990s and consist of home videos.

What fascinates me is that the people who made these films probably never thought of themselves as “filmmakers.” It’s precisely this amateur condition that moves me. Their camera work feels closer to an instinctive way of seeing and recording — subjectively choosing what people, events, or objects are worth documenting.

The Latin American footage you mentioned actually comes from a French couple whose initials were MJC. While organizing the material, I discovered that from 1959 to 1994 they traveled almost every August. I could sense how carefully they planned these trips. Each time they shot around ten reels of 8mm film and later edited them into travelogue-like films of roughly ninety minutes.

Maja: Did you find all these reels at flea markets?

Zhou: Yes, mainly at second-hand markets in Paris. For a while last year, I went almost every weekend looking for them. It became addictive — like opening blind boxes.

A lot of these reels ended up in flea markets because, after elderly people passed away, their families had to clear out their homes. Dealers who specialized in second-hand goods would buy old furniture and objects very cheaply, and these 8mm and Super 8 home movies would also end up being sold at the market.

Looking back now, the emergence of 8mm and Super 8 film formats represented a kind of “democratization of technology.” After World War II, Europe developed rapidly during reconstruction, and image recording became part of everyday consumer culture. You can see this in Kodak’s advertising brochures from the time: they often featured middle-class housewives holding 8mm cameras and filming family life.

As a result, the content of these films became quite concentrated — mainly travel, family gatherings, and documenting children growing up.

At the same time, this also reflects the democratization of image-making, providing a non-official perspective. Earlier, film technology had largely served military, surveillance, and official documentary purposes.

Maja: What do you find most special about these travel films?

Zhou: What strikes me is that they’re not just touristic “check-in” recordings. The filmmakers genuinely observed local people’s lives and labor. I really like the sense of “capturing” in their images.

But at the same time, this way of looking also contains a specifically European outward gaze — a gaze directed toward the Other.

For me, through these images, it almost feels as if I can return the gaze of the people appearing in the footage. That feeling is very strange and moving.

Maja: Those images look outward, while your short film feels much more inward-looking.

Zhou: Yes, this short film gradually took shape through several returns to my hometown.

After the pandemic, I went back home to spend time with my parents after several years away. One day, looking out from my apartment window, I noticed a wild tree growing on top of an unfinished shopping mall across the street. I thought it was incredible because there was barely any soil there, and yet the tree had managed to grow. It looked almost like a sculpture.

Later, when I saw the tree again, it had somehow been snapped in half and was hanging in mid-air. At that moment, I felt that its condition resembled my own situation at the time. It also brought back many childhood memories, as if I had returned to the old home of my memory.

Maja: So is the shopping mall basically abandoned now?

Zhou: Originally, it was planned as a mixed residential-commercial real-estate project, but the funding chain collapsed and it was left unfinished. Later, residents from the surrounding neighborhood collectively reoccupied and reused the space on their own initiative. Some people dance there, others practice martial arts or play table tennis.

Maja: Plants and culture have something in common: they grow naturally, even in hidden spaces with almost no soil. The scenes showing people social dancing are particularly beautiful.

Zhou: Yes, they reorganized part of the space according to the needs of dance practice. They installed stretching bars, standing mirrors — actually quite a complete setup.

After spending time with them, I realized they were different from the stereotypical image of public-square dancing groups. They don’t blast loud music. They’re more interested in finding relatively quiet places.

Especially in the evening, when the sunset shines directly into the space, the light becomes incredibly beautiful.

Maja: I also wanted to ask about the acupuncture scenes.

Zhou: That sequence was filmed spontaneously while I was taking care of my mother during her recovery after surgery. Seeing the doctor place rows of needles into my mother’s abdomen was visually very striking to me.

It made me think about my own state as a fetus inside the womb — that curled-up sensation. Perhaps the womb is the very first “space” we ever encounter. Even if we don’t consciously remember it, the experience remains inscribed in our subconscious.

This state also reminded me of the dung beetle balls mentioned in the film. When we were children, we used to dig them out of the soil, throw them at each other, even crush them. But later I learned that each dung ball actually contains a larva inside, and the ball itself serves as nourishment for the larva to grow into an adult beetle.

Maja: The sensation of acupuncture is very strange for me. It feels like previously ignored pain returning, finally having a chance to be released. Sometimes I suddenly taste iron in my mouth. Acupuncture is associated with “metal,” the tree is “wood,” and your title also contains “earth.”

Zhou: I think concrete, as a man-made building material, is itself a quintessential symbol of modernity. Its malleability makes urban mass production and replication easy. As a result, cities increasingly resemble one another — all becoming grids of square forms.

The same applies to family structures. People born in the 1980s like us were mostly only children: father, mother, one child — itself a kind of standardized structure.

In China, we often talk about “other people’s children” as an ideal standard. To me, that also reflects this same logic. It’s not about understanding a specific individual, but about measuring everyone according to one unified standard.

But I think what truly matters between people is understanding. A lot of suffering comes from not being understood, not being seen.

Maja: In rapidly changing post-socialist countries like China or Poland, the generational gap is huge. Parents and children struggle to understand each other because their experiences are so different. Was the final shot your father?

Zhou: Yes, the final shot is my father. In fact, this project is fundamentally a family film for me. Through the act of filming, I wanted to rebuild a connection with my parents and create something together.

For many years, they never really understood what I was doing. This became an opportunity for mutual understanding. I listened to stories about their childhoods, and together we transformed those memories into concrete gestures and scenes.

For example, my father once told me that when he was young, there was a flood upstream and fish from the reservoir were washed into the city. He and his friends went out catching fish, and it remained one of his happiest memories. Later, on a rainy day, I asked him to hold a flashlight and reenact the act of searching for fish in the floodwater.

Many scenes in the film actually emerged from our conversations.

Maja: Last November in Beijing, I visited Yang Fudong’s exhibition about his hometown. He’s also from Hebei. Some of the films shot in Hebei featured actors dressed in fashionable clothes, but the Hebei shown on screen felt almost indistinguishable from the Northeast. Combined with the imagery of Northeast China from ten years ago, it almost looked like another imitation of Black Coal Thin Ice. As someone from Hebei yourself, how do you think the specificity of that place can be represented on screen?

Zhou: The characteristic of Hebei on screen? Personally, I think the word “vacancy” is quite fitting.

In the broader social discourse, people are constantly encouraged to study hard, leave for bigger cities, and settle there. Under those conditions, it becomes difficult to build an internal sense of identity. In images, this often creates a feeling of emptiness or hollowness. I think Yang Fudong’s 2007 film East of Que Village captures this rather precisely.

As for the Northeast, in my own memories, many Northeasterners settled in Hengshui when I was a child.

Xu Mo (hereafter Xu): Since you brought up Hebei, I’ll add something. Whether in art or culture, many things in Hebei are difficult to excavate because they’re not very visible. But I actually think that precisely this harsh and oppressive environment gives rise to something special.

For example, some of the underground rock music from Shijiazhuang. I think those things are incredibly powerful. They grew slowly under economic pressure, discursive pressure, pressure imposed from above. And they often developed outside the mainstream rather than within it. So I think Hebei exists in a very particular state: many avant-garde and rebellious ideas are hidden underground, buried beneath the soil.

Maja: As if they were buried.

Zhou: Exactly. Some forms of expression are concealed beneath an apparently calm everyday surface, but underneath, things are always moving. Like plants struggling to survive through cracks.

Maja: Why is that?

Zhou: Think about Hebei geographically surrounding Beijing and Tianjin. Hebei constantly supplies them with resources and labor. At the same time, much of the pollution, industry, and waste eventually flows back into Hebei.

In that context, expressions emerging from Hebei are naturally overlooked.

Maja: When I visited Hengshui, I particularly remember the huge number of high residential buildings. But it seemed to me that there was almost nobody living in those apartments.

Xu: That issue is actually very real. Hebei is simply too close to the capital. If it became too economically developed, it would become “harder to control.” As a region surrounding the capital, its primary role is to provide stability and supply.

This creates a very unique political and economic environment. China has many similar triangular regions — Hebei-Beijing-Tianjin being one example. Officially, it’s framed as “joint development,” but in reality, one area develops while another supplies the blood. Hebei often occupies the latter position. It gives a lot, but receives very little in return.

Maja: So many talented young people eventually leave.

Xu: I once heard a joke: “The lifelong dream of Hebei people is to escape Hebei.” But behind that joke lies a very serious developmental problem. The region itself struggles to achieve large-scale development, so it remains stuck in a kind of limbo. In such an environment, the word “hope” becomes complicated. Ordinary people may not feel intensely oppressed, but they rarely talk about “the future becoming better.” People don’t think, “Tomorrow I’ll get rich,” or “I’ll have some good developments in my life” Instead, they think about leaving. Of course, that doesn’t mean nobody still tries to move things in another direction.

Maja: You mainly used black-and-white imagery. Why?

Zhou: Black-and-white imagery inherently creates a sense of distance, as well as a feeling of unquestioned reality. It’s clearly distinct from the colored world we normally see. But I don’t necessarily think the colored world we perceive is the world in its original state. Color itself is also a kind of “filter” produced by the human optical system. That’s why, in the emotionally charged final section of the film, I used color film — I wanted it to fall slightly out of the black-and-white structure and return to something more concrete and immediate. Sometimes I also think that perhaps, in the “black-and-white world” we imagine, color might instead become something belonging to the past. When future species reinterpret these colored images, the colors we perceive today might be reorganized within an entirely different cognitive system.

Maja: That’s very interesting. In a way, black and white almost feels like the color of the future. A bit like Alphaville by Jean-Luc Godard.

Zhou: Perhaps it’s a future that has become extremely binary — reduced to nothing but black and white.

Maja: I kept wondering afterward why you included a mannequin in the film.

Zhou: At first, I filmed many architectural spaces, mostly from my own perspective. But later I kept thinking about how to connect all these different elements together.

Then, during a trip back to China last year, I noticed this reflective mannequin. I was immediately fascinated by its metallic texture. When you look at it, it constantly produces reflections; its surface continuously distorts reality, warping both space and human figures.

And when you return to the abandoned space itself, you realize it was originally designed as a commercial space, yet in terms of its actual use, it too has undergone a kind of transformation.

今年的鹿特丹电影节呈现了一批极具分量的中国当代实验电影作品，其中包括彭祖强、王男以及严尚民等人的作品。其中，同样亮相电影节的还有定居巴黎的导演周振宇，他带来了新短片《混凝土枝叉》（Branches from Concrete）。

在这部影片中，过去、现在与未来仿佛坍塌并交织为一体。一座尚未完工的购物中心——既是房地产开发热潮的遗迹，也是早期资本主义欲望时代的残留——被转化为一种“家的核心”：一个公共空间中的私人空间。在那里，年长的夫妻一起跳舞，孩子们嬉戏玩耍。

《混凝土枝叉》始终弥漫着一种诡异而难以言说的气息，宛如多年后重返故乡时的感受：它既熟悉，又陌生。然而，导演周震宇并未沉溺于怀旧——这种在当下极易被消费与商品化的情绪——而是更倾向于凝视当下以及尚未到来的未来。

周振宇与《混凝土枝叉》的声音设计师徐墨一同携影片来到鹿特丹，与观众见面。一天下午，我们在de Doelen开始聊天，围绕这部影片展开了交谈。尽管《混凝土枝叉》以实验电影的形式展开，但其核心却植根于家庭录像（home video）的传统。周振宇是在回到河北衡水探望父母期间开始构思这一项目的。因此，在讨论这部短片时，一个重要切入点便是他线上策划ACTANTIMAGE（影像行为体）——该项目收集并数字化整理了法国多个家庭自20世纪50年代以来拍摄的家庭影像档案。

Maja：我注意到你主要的兴趣在于家庭录像。不只是你的短片，也是你策展的一个视频平台ACTANTIMAGE（影像行为体）。最近你放的很多影片都是拉美相关的。

周振宇（后简称：周）：是的，“家庭”确实是我一直关注的主题，因为我发现随着时间的变化，对于“家庭”的定义也在不断变化。

至于ACTANTIMAGE（影像行为体）我其实想做一个关于业余电影作品的收藏、归档和展示的平台，也是希望这些影像能在短视频这样一个空间里继续传播。其中大多数影片，都是上世纪50年代到90年代拍摄的家庭录像。

这些家庭影像的作者，我觉得他们在拍摄时，并没有意识到自己“电影人”的身份，反而这种“业余”的状态更打动我。他们的镜头更接近一种本能的观看与记录。主观地去选择值得记录的人事物。

你提到的那些拉美相关的片段，其实来自一对名字缩写为 MJC 的法国夫妇。我在整理素材时发现，他们从1959年到1994年之间，几乎每年八月都会外出旅行。我能感觉到他们会很认真地规划行程，每次大概拍十卷左右的8毫米胶片，最后配接成一个半小时左右旅行日志式的短片。

Maja：这些胶片都是在旧货市场找到的？

周：对，主要是巴黎的二手市场。去年有段时间，我差不多每个周末都会去搜罗一圈，这事挺上瘾的，有种开盲盒的感觉。

这些胶片之所以出现在二手市场，很多时候是因为老人去世后，家人需要清理房子，做二手回收的商家会上门，以比较低的价格回收旧家具以及旧物件，这些8毫米·超8格式的家庭录像也一同被带到市集出售。

现在来看，8毫米和超8胶片规格其实是一个“技术下放”的过程。二战之后，欧洲在重建中快速发展，影像记录也成为大众日常消费的一部分。这可以从柯达当时的宣传册中看出来：画面总是一个中产家庭主妇手拿8毫米摄像机记录家庭生活的场景。这也导致了这些影像的内容其实很集中，主要围绕着：旅行，家庭聚会和记录孩子成长。

另一方面，这也体现了影像的民主化，同时提供了一种非官方的观看角度，因为在更早的时候，胶片技术还在战争中服务于军事，侦探，以及官方记录等层面。

Maja：那你觉得这些旅游影像里，最特别的地方是什么？

周：特别的地方，我觉得他们的拍摄并不只是打卡式记录，而是真的有观察当地人的生活状态和劳作细节上，我挺喜欢他们镜头里的那种“捕捉感”；但同时，这种观看也带有一种欧洲人“向外看”的视角，一种对他者的凝视。

对我而言，通过这些影像，我仿佛能和镜头中出现的人重新对视，这种感觉很奇妙。

Maja：这些影像是“向外”的，但你的短片反而更像是“向内”的。

周：这部短片的完成，确实是在几次回到故乡之后逐渐成形的。

疫情之后，时隔几年，我再次回家陪伴父母，有一天，透过我家的窗户，我看到对面烂尾商场的楼顶长出了一棵野树。我认为楼顶的条件几乎没有土壤，它却在那里生长着，看起来像一座雕塑。

之后，再见到那棵树时，不知什么原因，它被拦腰折断，垂在半空。那一刻我觉得它的状态和当时我自身的境遇很像，这也让我回想起很多小时候的回忆，仿佛又回到记忆中老家的样子。

Maja：所以现在那个广场其实没人真正使用？

周：这个商业广场原本是商住两用的地产项目，但后来资金链断裂，一直废弃在那里。后来我们附近居民以自组织的形式，重新进入使用这个空间。有人跳舞，有人练拳，以及打乒乓球之类的休闲活动。

Maja：植物和文化有共同之处：他们是自然长出来的，连在一个几乎没土壤的一个小地方，很隐蔽的空间。你拍跳拉丁舞的镜头拍得特别美。

周：对，他们按照舞蹈练习的需要重新布置了一块区域，有压腿架、落地镜这些设施，条件还挺完整。

和他们相处下来，我觉得他们和一般广场舞的状态不太一样，他们不会把音乐声量开得很大。更多是在找一种相对安静的地方。

尤其是在傍晚，夕阳直射进来，光线真的很美。

Maja：我还想问的是关于针灸的镜头。

周：这个片段是我在陪护母亲术后恢复时即兴拍的。当时看到医生把针一排排扎在我妈的肚皮上，视觉上对我来说还是蛮冲击的。

这让我想到我作为一个胎儿在母体子宫里的状态，那种蜷缩的感觉。母亲的子宫也许是我们最早接触到的“空间”，这段经历也许我们未必记得，但它刻在我们的潜意识之中。

这种状态也让我联想到片中提到的屎壳郎粪球。记得小时候我们会把那些粪球从土中挖出来，相互扔着玩，甚至捏碎。但后来我才知道，其实每个粪球都有一个幼虫住在里面，粪球本身也是幼虫成长成虫的养料。

Maja：针灸医生在我肚子里扎针的感觉特别奇怪，有点像是之前的被忽略的痛苦重新回来，有机会把它放开。在嘴里突然能感觉到铁的味道。针灸跟“金”有关，树是“木”，你的片名里又有“土”。

周：我觉得混凝土作为人工建筑材料，本身就是一个典型的现代化符号。它的可塑性，易于城市的批量制造和复制。这导致每个城市都看起来越来越像，都是那种方格状的型态。

家庭结构同是。像我们80后这一代，大部分都是独生子女，父亲母亲加一个孩子，本身也是一种标准化的结构。

我们常说的“别人家的孩子”，在我看来也是这种逻辑的一种体现。它不是在理解一个具体的人，而是在用一个统一的标准去衡量所有人。

但我觉得人与人之间真正重要的，其实还是理解。痛苦很多时候也来自不被理解，不被看见。

Maja：在快速改变的后社会主义国家，像中国或波兰也是，代沟特别大，父母和孩子很难理解彼此因为经验很不一样。最后那个镜头是你爸爸吗？

周：是的，最后那个镜头是我爸爸。其实这个项目对我来说，本身就是一部家庭电影。我希望通过拍摄这个动作，和他们重新建立一种连接，一起去完成某种表达。这么多年，他们其实也一直不太理解我在做什么。

这也算是一次相互了解的契机，我会听他们讲小时候的经历，然后我们一起把这些记忆转化成一些具体的动作和场景。

比如我爸跟我讲过，他小时候，有一次上游泄洪，水库的鱼被冲到市区，他和小伙伴去抓鱼，那是他特别快乐的一段记忆。后来有一天正好下雨，我就让他拿着手电，在积水里模拟当时找鱼的样子。

很多镜头，其实都是我们在聊天之后，一起想出来的。

Maja：我去年11月在北京时去看杨福东的展览关于他的家乡，他也是河北人。在展览里有几个在河北拍的片子，演员都穿得很时髦但是银幕上的河北都和东北太类似，再加上10年前的东北，看起来又是一个模仿《白日焰火》的作品。我想问的是你做一个河北人，你觉得银幕上怎么表示这个地方的特点呢？

周：河北在银幕上的特点？我个人感觉，“空置”这个词还挺贴切的。因为就整体的舆论环境而言，其实一直是在引导大家好好学习，然后尽量去到更大的城市，并定居在那里。这样很难建立起我们自身内部的认同感。在影像中，就容易呈现出一种被抽空的感觉。我觉的《雀村往东》还挺精确的。

说到东北，在我的记忆中，确实有许多东北人落脚在衡水，在我小时候。

徐墨（后简称：徐）：我觉得你既然提到河北，我就随便聊一点。

其实河北的艺术也好，文化也好，很多东西都特别难被挖掘。因为它们往往不是特别显眼的。但我反而觉得，正是这种比较恶劣、压抑的环境，会催生出一些特别的东西。比如石家庄的一些地下摇滚。我觉得那些东西其实特别有力量。它们是在经济压抑、话语压抑、来自上层结构的压抑之下慢慢长出来的。而且它们往往不是在主流内部成长的，而是在主流之外。

所以我觉得河北有一种特别特殊的状态：很多很先锋、很反叛的思想，其实都藏在地下，或者说，被覆盖在土壤之下。

Maja：像是被埋住了一样。

周：对，有些表达被看似日常的平静所掩盖，但实际上，在表层之下，总有些东西暗流涌动。就像在缝隙中求生的植物。

Maja：为什么？

周：因为你想，河北在地理上把北京和天津包裹其中。北京和天津的发展，河北要不断为它们提供资源、劳动力。但与此同时，很多污染、工业、废弃物之类的，最后又会回流到河北。

在这样的语境下，关于河北的表达，自然是被忽视的。

Maja：我去衡水的时候我特别记得一大批住宅区的大楼。但是有时候我感觉，在那些看起来特别正常的大楼里面根本没什么人。

徐：这个问题其实很现实。因为河北离首都太近了。如果它经济发展得太好，反而会变得“不受控制”。作为首都周边地区，它最重要的任务其实是提供稳定、提供供给。

所以它形成了一种特别独特的政治环境和经济环境。其实中国还有很多类似的这样的三角地区像河北省-北京-天津。表面上说的是“共同发展”，但实际上往往是一部分地区负责发展，另一部分地区负责供血。

河北很多时候承担的就是后者。它付出很多，但得到的回报其实很少。

Maja：所以很多有才华的年轻人最后都会离开。

徐：我之前就听过一句玩话：“河北人一生的梦想就是逃离河北。”

但其实这个玩笑背后，是一个特别严肃的发展问题。因为这个地方本身就很难获得真正的大规模发展，所以它长期只能维持在一种不上不下的状态。

在这样的环境里，“希望”这个词其实挺微妙的。很多普通人未必会觉得特别压抑，但他们也很少真正谈论“未来会变得更好”这种事。

他们不会觉得“明天我就发财了”、“我很快就能发展起来”，反而会想到离开。当然，也不会排除它，还是会在往这个方向在努力吧。

Maja：你主要用了黑白影像。为什么？

周：因为就黑白影像的观看经验，它本身会带来一种距离感，和不被质疑的真实感。这和我们日常看到的彩色世界有明显的区分。

但我不太认为我们看到的彩色世界就是世界本来的样子。色彩其实也是人类视觉系统的一种“滤镜”。所以在片尾涉及情感的部分，我用了彩色胶片，是想让它从黑白的结构里稍微“落回”到一种更具体的感受里。

我有时也会想，也许在我们构想的“黑白世界”中，色彩反而会变成一种过去式的存在，当新的物种重新读取这些彩色影像信息时，这些我们感受到的色彩可能会在新的认知体系中被重新编排。

Maja：这挺有意思的。某种程度上，黑白反而像未来的颜色。有点像 Godard’s “Alphaville”。

周：也许是一种被极端二元化后的未来，只剩下非黑即白的状态。

Maja：我后来一直在想，你为什么会把一个模特放进片子里。

周：我最开始其实拍了很多建筑空间，基本都是以我的视角去拍摄。但后来我一直在想，怎样能把这些不同元素串联起来。

直到去年回国，我注意到这个反光的模特。当时特别被它的金属质感吸引。你在看它的时候，它本身就在形成一种“反射”，它的表面会不断扭曲现实，看到的空间和人的形象都会发生形变。

再回到这个废弃空间本身，它最初被规划为一个商业空间，但在现实的使用层面上，也发生了某种程度的变形。

In late February 2025, I talked with filmmaker Manuel Embalse about the film he edited, Under the Flags, the Sun (Bajo las banderas, el sol), which premiered in the Panorama section at the 75th Berlinale. We first met at the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival in Seoul, South Korea, where his film The New Ruins (Las ruinas nuevas) was screened in the Frontier Competition, and we have kept in contact since then. I did not know that we would be lucky enough to meet again so soon.

On a sunny morning in Berlin, we sat down at a cafe to exchange experiences after the festival and talk about the project that became Under the Flags, the Sun. The conversation soon shifted to the film industry, history, and politics at large.

Maja Korbecka: How was the festival experience for you?

Manuel Embalse: It was a very particular experience. Being editor of a found footage film directed by a close friend, a project in which editing is so important, having worked a lot and having it premiering at a polemic film festival, it all made me wonder if to go to the Berlinale or not. Even so, the experience was valuable. I chose to participate. I had a lot of conflicting feelings about being there because of the attitude of Berlinale since 7th October 2023. I work as editor and sound designer, but I also recognize myself as a Jew pro-Palestinian filmmaker—during 2024, I was present at festivals as a director, speaking openly about Gaza, reading poems of Mahmoud Darwish. I’m conscious of what’s happening in Palestine and it affects me everyday.

In December, when I found out that Under the Flags, the Sun had been accepted into the Panorama section, I started wondering what it would mean to attend the festival, especially in the current political context. I also found out that the film’s distributor is from Israel. So, here we were with a film from Paraguay, coproduced by Argentina, United States, Germany and France, countries whose governments—not their people, but their governments—are complicit also in the genocide in Palestine. Also, when I saw the dates of the festival, I didn’t realize at the time that the festival would end just as the German elections began.

With all this information, for me, as a Jew and a Latin American editor, I started to have a lot of contradictions, and I thought: “If I go to the festival, I can’t be silent and I must make a speech.” After speaking with the director, Juanjo Pereira, my friends and colleagues, I decided to go, but was convinced that I have to speak at the premiere. Juanjo supported me and other filmworkers too. Before flying to Berlin, I talked with friends attending the Berlinale Talents about what we were planning to do. When we arrived, we got together with Talents from different countries and with other filmworkers for Palestine that were participating in the festival. We organized to be brave and supported each other. We were few compared to this giant festival.

But, luckily, the first person who spoke out at the Berlinale 2025 was Hong Kong director Jun Li. He did that the night before the premiere of our film. During the Q&A after his film Queer Panorama (眾生相), he read a statement written by his Iranian actor. Because he used the phrase “From the river to the sea,” he was investigated by the German police, and before going to sleep I read a lot of news on social media about him. So we can’t say there was no censorship. There was censorship. It felt like an “updated Cold War”—being watched. But I also feel calm that I wasn’t the first to speak.

Before the first screening of Under the Flags, the Sun, I was anxious. It was the first time I ever doubted whether I could speak freely at a film festival, I mentioned that in my speech. I said that I’m not calm in this country and in this film environment. I wrote different versions of my speech, and I decided to quote Sebald, German writer with some excerpts from his book Natural History of Destruction. In Paraguay, Argentina and across Latin America, Under the Flags, the Sun  has drawn a lot of attention, as a work-in-progress project taking part in industry events at international film festivals in recent years, it was an “expected film”. Everyone in the documentary world was asking: “When will it premiere?” Once it premiered in Berlin, I knew that whatever I said would spread widely. So I felt pressure. After my speech, I felt calm. I had chosen to be there.

By the end of the festival, I counted maybe seven or eight films that explicitly addressed Palestine. I’m flying back on Monday, and I admit I’m a little paranoid. Of course, nothing will happen—it would look bad if they retaliated against people who spoke out from Latin American Countries. But the atmosphere shaped my entire experience. I still believe I did the right thing. I’ve received a lot of support and probably a lot of people hated me. I had courage that day, but now I’m scared. The festival unfolded smoothly, but under a psychological cloud.

Maja: It’s telling that two of the competition films were titled Dreams. It’s as if the whole industry is dreaming— just not awake to the big changes happening now and those still to come.

Manuel: There was also After Dreaming in Panorama. That’s a good observation. The programming was political in some ways. Our film from Paraguay directly addresses Germany’s complicity in Nazism. So yes, there are political films. But there was also a silence on stage—a hesitance to speak politically. It made me wonder: are they dreaming of the future, as if to say, “Let’s move past this”? In my speech, I quoted postwar Germany: “Don’t look back. Rebuild the city. Silence the past.” And it’s eerie. It’s election day, yet nothing is happening in the city. In Argentina, there would be energy, tension, and political conversation.

Maja: Today is so quiet.

Manuel: Just a normal Sunday here. When I was deciding whether to come, I thought—maybe this is the perfect moment to say something. Even if you go to bed a little afraid, at least you’ve spoken.

Maja: I’ve been thinking about Berlinale’s origins. Did you know the festival’s first director, Alfred Bauer, was a Nazi?

Manuel: No, but I suspected.

Maja: Film festivals themselves were born from nationalism. Venice FF under Mussolini. Berlinale under the Cold War. This festival was established because the West needed a glamorous front to counter the Eastern Bloc.

Manuel: And now everything that happened this week is part of Berlinale’s history. The director of the festival said she wanted to persuade the Chinese director who spoke out first—that’s political. Even the screenshots from Instagram stories—they’re part of Berlinale’s archive now.

Maja: In the Chinese filmmaking community, there was also criticism of Berlinale programming. Have you heard?

Manuel: No, what happened?

Maja: Several Chinese film professionals criticized Berlinale for selecting What’s Next for the Forum section. The film was made using AI, and the filmmaker Cao Yiwen (曹译文) is known on Douban—the Chinese equivalent of IMDb—as a fake (野鸡导演), giving false information about claiming various awards.

Manuel: I can’t believe it.

Maja: The filmmaker claimed various awards and achievements on Douban, but they were fabricated. I think the programmers might not be aware of her reputation.

Manuel: I heard that some filmmakers after they spoke in solidarity with Palestine during their screenings were confronted by Berlinale organisers.

Maja: The festival is dependent on state funding, it is understandable the organisers are anxious and want to negotiate, it is a survival strategy. Everyone’s afraid of losing their jobs.

Manuel: True. In the Berlinale Shorts section, they could speak, but I also heard that filmmakers had a meaningful conversation with programmers, and they wanted to read the statements about Palestine. They got together and read their planned statements phrase by phrase, analyzing what they can say or not. It’s shocking.

Maja: Maybe filmmakers in Shorts were freer because their films aren’t as marketable. There’s less media pressure.

Manuel: That’s something for your book. In Argentina, the market for shorts is tiny, but it exists.

Maja Korbecka: How was Barlinale, the boycott festival?

Manuel Embalse: It was interesting, there were different boycotts. I think that’s part of the problem, because a lot of activities were happening at the same time in different places in the same city.

Maja: So they weren’t united.

Manuel: Exactly. Everyone wanted to have their own opinion, their own agenda, their own curation. It’s OK, but it distracts me a little bit. I attended one screening of the boycotts on Thursday, the 20th. The exhibition space had a very good atmosphere—like a living room, with people drinking beer. Inside, there were maybe thirty people. It was the first day of the public transport workers’ strike, but I don’t think that explains the low attendance. The program started with the world premiere of a British short about a Palestinian girl now living in Berlin—the story of her migration from Palestine to Germany. It felt very academic, like a film school thesis, but very sensitive. Then they showed an Argentine feature directed by a close friend, a beautiful film. The discussion afterward was short—fifteen minutes about how the director started working on the film and what inspired it. Then they had to close the event, I wanted more discussion.

Maja: Woche der Kritik has a similar format—pairing a short and a feature, then hosting a discussion. In that case, the short was shot by a filmmaker from the UK who had filmed in Kenya on 16mm. It focused on domestic workers. Someone in the audience pointed out that after these women spent all day working in people’s homes, he then asked them to appear in his film—essentially to continue working.

Manuel: Did they talk about colonization—or meta-colonization?

Maja: Yes, the film discussed how the domestic workers became part of the household space—how one of them couldn’t speak or see, her senses seemed paralyzed. It was framed as a commentary on colonization. But what the filmmaker didn’t do was to reflect on his own position as a tourist.

Manuel: Why? I don’t understand why white people go to Africa and don’t reflect on their own role. Start the film with that! Say anything!

Maja: The filmmaker actually appeared in the film himself. He was one of the guests staying at the bed-and-breakfast where the film was set, but he didn’t expand on it in the plotline. The house where he filmed had been turned into a homestay for tourists, so he positioned himself in the background. He acknowledged his presence, but what really struck me was what happened after the screening. When an audience member challenged him, he said, “We can discuss that further,” in an open and calm way. And the person who asked the question just replied, “I don’t want to discuss it. I’m not interested.” It was very aggressive.

Manuel: The audience member said that?

Maja: Yes. From their perspective, the issue was serious—and rightly so—but these discussions need to happen without accusations. Accusations don’t resolve anything.

Manuel: So the audience itself didn’t want to engage? That’s the real problem—both filmmakers and audiences.

Maja: Exactly. We’re all trying, but intermediaries like us can’t always act as peacemakers. Who are we to take that role? I don’t want that authority. I’m also taking a position, like everyone else.

Manuel: That’s the core issue—the politics of art and society in general. It’s not just about Palestine or Israel. The same thing happens with Russia and Ukraine, with the left and the right, even with the center positions. There’s so much anxiety around taking a position. People have forgotten how to have a conversation—to take time, to speak without hurry, to disagree peacefully. Instead, it becomes, “I’m not speaking to you. I don’t want conflict.”

Maja: It’s so childish.

Manuel: Yes. Look at our world leaders—they behave like children who never learned boundaries. Trump is a perfect example: a child who lacked love but had money.

Maja: Everything is transactional.

Manuel: He’s a businessman. Now he wants to negotiate with Putin, penalize Ukraine, and make them repay the U.S. for its military investment. It’s important to talk about all these overlapping realities. That’s why I’m an editor.

Maja: That’s so true.

Manuel: Editing itself—parallel montage, as taught by Pudovkin, Eisenstein, or Vertov—was the great lesson of the 20th century, before social media. It showed us that the contradictions of history and reality unfold simultaneously, everywhere, in everyone. We’re having this conversation right now, and probably in some hotel, the Berlinale committee is congratulating itself for giving awards to certain films. It’s all parallel. Do you know Adam Curtis? He’s a British documentarian who made HyperNormalisation.

Maja: Yes, it’s on YouTube—I watched parts of it.

Manuel: His recent work on post-1989 Russia, TraumaZone, is a big reference for me. That feeling of hypernormalization—it’s exactly what I sense now. His films show how politics became secondary once the internet reshaped global life. What we consume, what we hide, what we erase—all of it became part of a digital narrative.

He argues that after the 1990s, we started living in parallel realities: one visible, one hidden. And that’s where we are now. People in the cinema are afraid to speak out. In the past, you had Glauber Rocha in Locarno shouting that the jury was bought off. Or Godard interrupting Cannes in 1968, saying that the festival cannot go on while workers and students are protesting in the streets. Now, people dream of a reality where film festivals shouldn’t be political.

Maja: Berlinale used to brand itself as “the political festival.” That was its identity. And now everything feels so quiet.

I can imagine last year, under Chatrian, a lot of people working for the Berlinale were completely overwhelmed by the controversies surrounding Palestine and Israel. The emotional and psychological toll was huge because there is an identity conflict between individuals and the institution they work for. I think that kind of burnout—and the choice to stay silent—also comes from fragmentation. There’s no unity among like-minded people. Everyone’s isolated. And on top of that, the workload of festival organizers is absurd. So how is anything supposed to function? Bureaucracy dominates everything. This Berlinale felt strange for me too, because I didn’t have time to attend any public screenings with Q&As.

Manuel: Because as a juror, you can’t?

Maja: I could, but I was too busy—twenty-plus competition films, a regular job, festival coverage. Everyone’s so overworked that there’s no space left to think.

Manuel: Exactly. The next day just becomes about survival—coffee, deadlines, capitalism.

Maja: Right. It’s all about just getting through the day. That constant rush builds a kind of mental blockade.

Manuel: It’s all market logic now.

Maja: So I was also wondering — how was the audience feedback for Under the Flags, the Sun during the Q&As?

Manuel: The audience feedback — well, the premiere was amazing. There were a lot of Paraguayans and Latin American friends, which made the premiere very special. It was very important because many people who had supported the film — programmers, festivals — hadn’t seen the rough cut, only a trailer. Juanjo received a lot of positive feedback. As the editor, I received a different kind of feedback, of course, since I’m not the director. Not bad feedback — all of it was interesting and positive — but sometimes during the Q&A, people wanted more information than the film gave them.

You know, it’s Juanjo’s first feature, but it’s not a “shy” film, it has an interesting attitude. Some people praised me, because it’s a film made entirely from found footage, and I know the amount of work that went into the editing. Julián Galay too — he’s the sound designer. I think it was really special that people noticed and appreciated the editing and sound design. That doesn’t happen often. But with a footage film, the editing is always speaking — like, “hello, I’m here, I’m the editor” — and the sound is fully present all the time also.

What was also interesting is that almost no one knows anything about Paraguay — not even many Latin Americans. Paraguayan people said, “Wow, this film is so important.” Some cried during the Q&As — people who had migrated from Paraguay. The screening at Zoo Palast was the best I’ve ever been to. There was a Paraguayan girl in the audience who started crying, saying, “I can’t believe you did this. This speaks about why we migrate.” It was very emotional — about the history of Paraguay, the silence, the fear that still exists in society.

So, all the feedback — whether people liked or disliked certain scenes — was deeply meaningful. As an Argentinian who knows Paraguay’s history, I’m often the strange guy at dinner saying, “Did you know there was a 34-year dictatorship in Paraguay?” No one in Argentina knows that. So there was this strong reaction about how important the film is for Latin America in this context.

And I think also, as a filmmaker and someone who thinks about history and editing, there’s some part of the history that isn’t shown deeply: the film doesn’t show how the resistance existed during the dictatorship, but it was a director’s decision that I respected, not to develop the part about the movement that existed against Stroessner. Juanjo was very conscious about that: this film can’t include everything. For me, there were some subjects that the film explored that are so unique, such as the “Archivos del Terror / The Terror Archive — the only Latin American archive that keeps the dictatorship files.

Maja: And where is it?

Manuel: In Paraguay. And the film doesn’t get so much into that.

Maja: I didn’t know exactly where the materials were from.

Manuel: It’s in the credits — “Archivos del Terror.”

Maja: Yes, there could have been more context.

Manuel: For Juanjo and I, the story of the film begins in 1880, with the War of the Triple Alliance — a war between Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, supported by Great Britain. It destroyed half of the population of Paraguay. After that, there were almost no men left. Then came the Partido Colorado, which ruled continuously. From the early 20th century until 1954, when Stroessner took power, there were about different coups — all from the same party. It was like a cycle. During the Second World War, there was also the Chaco War, financed by the U.S., between Paraguay and Bolivia over the Chaco region — rich in oil land.

So the film could have included more historical context — like an Errol Morris commentary. The War of the Triple Alliance was actually the first war photographed in Latin America, by a British photographer. There should have been more about how Paraguay arrived in 1954 and the dictatorship. But the production and Juanjo decided the film couldn’t be that long. People in Paraguay need to speak about Stroessner, not the Triple Alliance. I totally understood it. There is a 4 hours cut that includes the period before the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, and the film continues until the Covid pandemic times in Paraguay and in the present. There are steel boots of Stroessner’s statue still left on the mountain near the capital city of Asunción. It isn’t a memorial site. People go jogging there. No one knows that the feet of the dictator’s statue are still there. (Now, ten months after our conversation, in October the feet disappeared and no one knows what happened).

Maja: It’s so interesting — why the feet were left there. Because there are so many parallels with what happens to other statues, like those of Stalin in Eastern Europe, or Chiang Kai-shek in Taiwan. In Taiwan, for example, there’s a park that gathers all the statues of Chiang Kai-shek.

Manuel: Yes! I’ve seen the same in Hungary — in Budapest, in “Memento Park”, near a highway. All the communist statues, with a giant hand over a wooden base, all the mountains of sculptures — amazing, but in the middle of nowhere.

Maja: In Poland, there’s only one small museum in a tiny town in the east — a Museum of Socialist Art in Kozłówka. And then there’s the DDR Museum, which is like a Luna Park.

Manuel: I went there last time I was in Berlin — and also to the Stasi Museum.

Maja: Yes, though the DDR Museum is different. It displays everyday objects from the DDR — as if it were a theme park. So these feet — how the past is still here, unresolved. It’s either ridiculed and turned into entertainment, or it just stands there, without context, but still present. It’s so Wagnerian — like a scene from a Wagner opera, at the top of the mountain.

Manuel: The director told me that no one knew the feet were still there — and now it will finally be public. No one is interested. I went to Paraguay only three times, I can’t speak as a Paraguayan, of course, but as an anthropologist-tourist, I can say Asunción feels a little bit abandoned and it’s so sad. There’s no visible political opposition. The city center is still from the Stroessner era, waiting to be demolished to make way for malls and new houses.

The idea of the statue — we never discussed ending the film there, but there’s a monument made from the statue’s remains. It’s an art piece by one of Paraguay’s most important artists, Carlos Colombino. In his work “Contramonumento / Countermonument”,  he reassembled Stroessner’s parts — the head here, the hand there. In one moment, the film ends with that artwork, in the Square of the Disappeared, near the government house.

But well, we couldn’t include everything, there were only 2 shots filmed in the present and the entire project is based largely on archival materials. I think this is the problem with footage films. When you bureaucratize, when you start working with institutions—European, American, even Latin American—the only thing people want to talk about is the price: how much the archives cost, how you got the footage. For me, that was very difficult.

Maja: It’s so twisted that all these grants from European institutions end up going back to the EU. In the end, the money circulates back to the investors.

Manuel: Behind the flags, behind the curtains, there’s another story—the real process. In this case, the conditions of production affect the creation, because footage is money, too. In one moment of the process, after the co-production started and some work-in-progress prizes appeared, the director decided to do all the legal process to find the archives. Of course, it’s a pleasure to work with European funding. I was paid for every editing period. Without the funding, completing the film would have been a longer process and a cheaper film. So, little by little, we constructed the idea that film must tell the image of power, and we discarded a lot of scenes of other subjects because they were expensive.

Maja: It’s the same problem with academic research. You always have to choose a perspective—“from which point of view are you writing your thesis?” It doesn’t have to be the official one, but you have to choose one. And by choosing one, you’re already telling a subjective story, while research and science is supposedly objective – it is the idea it projects about itself.

Manuel: By telling one history, you silence others.

Maja: Exactly. You can write from the perspective of resistance, or from power, or from the media—but there is an assumption that you can’t tackle all of them. And if you want to tell a story that feels more true, you somehow have to try. Even though of course it’s impossible to tell the whole truth.

Manuel: Anyway, I know we could have made that film. Because in the last week of editing, there were two scenes. One showed the five political parties that opposed Stroessner—it appeared around minute ten. Remember those small red transitions separating scenes? That sequence used to last two minutes, just red, no images. After the part where Stroessner visits Germany, you hear about the Mengele connection. That whole section was once two minutes without image—just the sound of the forest, thinking of the disappeared people thrown from airplanes. The Archive of Terror, one of my favorite aspects of this project, holds the personal diaries of officers during the attacks, describing how they hunted the Resistance.

All of that happened in the forests, not the cities. In minute ten, the Resistance was introduced—visible. You saw still photos of rural and Indigenous fighters, people with guns, extraordinary images found in the archives. We had their names, the names of their parties, maps of Paraguay marking the locations of attacks. Then the film returned to the main thread. The resistance was present. Later, the film showed Margarita’s personal file—then her brother speaking in his own archives.

Maja: Because for me, as a viewer, that part came out of nowhere. It wasn’t properly introduced.

Manuel: Exactly. Suddenly you’re giving voice to the disappeared—through police investigation archives. But in an earlier version of the film, there was a ten-minute introduction preparing you for that. You understood there was Resistance. Later, in minute thirty, came the police diary describing gunshots and raids. It established that the Resistance was fighting back. And then you saw Margarita—kidnapped, her husband killed, her child lost. Those scenes were in the editing, but finally Juanjo decided to not include them and I didn’t insist.

Maja: I thought there simply weren’t any images of the Resistance—only official or foreign newsreels.

Manuel: They say there’s no audiovisual footage—no Super 8 films from the Resistance—but there are photographs. Many. If you work with the state archives, you find photos of soldiers raiding houses, of confiscated pamphlets, typewriters—evidence of people who gave their lives to resist.

Maja: It’s fascinating how photographs are treated as less valuable than film. As if one photo couldn’t contain more than a thousand frames.

Manuel: Half an hour at the beginning of the film was originally about the nineteenth-century war, the genocide, with nitrate scans of incredible quality. Those photos are in Uruguay now, not Paraguay—and Uruguay was one of the countries responsible for Paraguay’s destruction at the time. Juanjo was under immense pressure. He shifted focus—from searching within the archives to searching for archives. And I was the one inside the archives.

Maja: There’s such a difference between searched footage and found footage. When you find it, you’re listening to it. When you search for it, you’re imposing meaning.

Manuel: Exactly. I did my best and I learned a lot.

Maja: I think, for me, an even more perfect film would be to actually make it into a very, very long film, in parts—but edited together with footage of other, similar incidents from different parts of the world. For example, when I was watching the film, I immediately thought about the Manila Film Center. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of this story. The Manila International Film Festival was actually established by Imelda Marcos, the wife of the dictator of the Philippines. And what happened during the building of the festival center was that more than 160 workers were buried under cement. The building still exists. The festival actually took place there in the early 1980s—the first edition was in 1981—and it was meant to be an international film festival. Many film professionals boycotted it, but programmers from Venice FF and several other major festivals were there.

But I know more about the festival from the perspective of Chinese filmmakers’ reports. And no one actually mentioned that tragedy. What they did mention was that, during the opening ceremony of the festival, there was an explosion—an attack by guerrillas—and how inconvenient for the festival participants it was.

Manuel: I love that information.

Maja: Yeah, and it’s interesting that in the Philippines, the Resistance also stationed in the forest. It wasn’t in the city. Anyway, often I feel as if history is repeating itself and we haven’t learned anything over the years. So, actually, what would be an even more powerful film would be to make this transnational film editing parallel events that seem to be echoing each other.

Manuel: 1989, the dictatorship falls…

Maja: And in so many places—South Korea, Taiwan…Everything, everything. In Poland too. And how, in that moment, everything that happened in the 1990s—it was like we lost the struggle. The politics, yeah, exactly. Eastern Germany was colonized by Western Germany, its lifestyle, ideology, economic system, everything it represented. In Poland, the whole industry was privatized. Many big companies and factories were sold to the West. And we were just poor. I don’t know—it’s a long story. My parents lost everything overnight because of the inflation. They got married in 1989, and I was born in 1992. When they got married, all the presents and money they received for their wedding—overnight, it was worth almost nothing.

Manuel: You have to see this footage series by Adam Curtis—TraumaZone. It’s about that period, about how inflation destroyed the Soviet Union.

Maja: It’s so interesting. For many people the early 1990s was a period full of dreams. The first thing my parents bought was a satellite dish to watch TV from Germany. We were so saturated by this media, trying to be the West, trying to be as…

Manuel: The American dream.

Maja: And everything was just lost in the 1990s, I think. Complicity came.

Manuel: The ’70s and ’80s showed us revolutions and struggles, but with the ’90s… We are that generation—we are the kids of the ’90s. Capitalism and hyper-normalization of life is what we got. “You have to have a Tesla car.” That dream destroyed all the other dreams—that you could change something, that you could…

Maja: That’s a lot about colonization too. How one dream is kind of colonized by another dream.

Manuel: Exactly. I don’t feel represented by that materialistic desire in life. But I know that many in our generation want another life—the one they’re supposed to have. And for me, well, I’m part of two collectives. I have proof that there are people resisting. But we’re such a minority.

For me, the problem is: how can those people get involved in politics if they work sixteen hours a day and then have to care for their children?

The international media say about the situation in Argentina: “How did Javier Milei win? How did he appear like that in society?” And you think—why don’t you talk to a worker? It’s the same in the U.S., of course. Talk to them about how they make it to the end of the month—with so little money. Political parties change, but the situation stays the same. The people who voted for Milei aren’t getting involved in politics. They continue to struggle to make ends meet and live a decent life as best they can. Argentina’s history is so complex, as every country.

For me, the global problem is how to make it possible for all classes—especially the working class—to have the time to get involved in politics, to go to the theater, to watch films, to read books. Techno-capitalism today creates more distraction. The less time you have, the less you want to get involved—because you’re tired, because you want to have time for your children. And if you don’t have children, you want to make your own films, like me.

Maja: That’s your child.

Manuel: Of course—my cat and my films. And I know, I’m very conscious that I’m part of that segment of society that gets involved—but I’m not changing the world. But what is to change the world now anyways?

近五年内，中国短片获得欧洲主要国际电影节的评委团的青睐，比如柏林电影节2021年的《下午过去了一半》（导演：张大磊）以及戛纳 2022 年的《海边升起一座悬崖》（导演：陈剑瑩）。2025 年的洛迦诺电影节短片竞赛（Golden Pardino – Pardi di Domani）评委团——Jihan El Tahri、Lemohang Mosese 和 Sara Serraiocco——选择了杨名导演的美中合拍项目《鬣狗》。在洛迦诺，观众称赞了这部短片的视觉语言和大规模的制作。如果说有哪一部短片的形式可以被形容为“大片”，《鬣狗》肯定是一个例子：成本高、特效、视觉方面比较强。但短片的本质不就是以相对较低的成本探索新的叙事方式呢？并让电影人摆脱市场的束缚，获得一定程度的自由吗？我开始问自己，为什么在当下的电影环境里出现像《鬣狗》的一部短片：有如此大的成本、如此多的群众演员。在洛迦诺，我有机会与杨名、摄影师胡英海，以及制片人邓煜曈讨论《鬣狗》的制作过程和项目背后的故事。

Maja：我们可以从你自己的故事开始。因为在介绍电影的手册你有提到，你到18岁都住在寺庙里。你能不能介绍一下你自己的教育过程呢？

Altay（杨名）：我比较坎坷，我小时候在内蒙古，过着标准少数民族式的生活，爸妈对我的学习并没抱太大期望。由于喜欢画画，我考到了北京，算是从草原搬到了城市。高中在中央美院附中上学，大学去了北京电影学院。我的学习过程中，环境比较鼓励我去释放个性、随意穿衣打扮、留长发，老师也来自世界各地。学校有一个电影社，一个club，胡英海，也就是HYENA的联合导演，是第一届社长，带我一起拍电影。我高一，他高二。第二年我接任社长，我们就继续拍。学校特别支持我们拍电影。

我在高中时拍了一个45分钟的短片，还在电影院放映，我记得当时我的海报贴在《速度与激情》的旁边。那是我第一次在大屏幕上看到自己的片子，我去做DCP，调放映机，感受观众的反应。从那时起，我做电影就一直想着“大屏幕”的感受。

Maja：当然。而且你在电影里很多场景都挺“西方”的，比如那个城堡。

Altay：对。我从小学画画，学了十年，从油画到雕塑，全是西方艺术体系的内容。我能背出所有流派：文艺复兴、巴洛克、洛可可……我的专业就是西方绘画。所以对我来说，古典绘画特别理性、严谨，很适合我片子里的主题——“狂热（frenzy）”。我一开始可以不用画室做场景，但我觉得画室里那种古典理性的氛围，能更好地衬托人的疯狂。

Maja：那你觉得，这种狂热在别的环境里也会出现吗？它是不是和西方艺术特别相关？

Altay：对，我在做片子时也想过。我让美术帮我找的所有画都和“群体”有关，比如杰利柯（Géricault）的《梅杜萨之筏》（Le Radeau de la Méduse）。那幅画讲一群人漂流到最后互相残食。西方绘画里从中世纪到19世纪都有很多关于“群体疯狂”“群众力量”的图像。

在宿舍里我们挂的是德拉克洛瓦（Delacroix）的《自由引导人民》（La Liberté guidant le peuple）——那也是群体的象征。我用这些画并不是要观众直接读出含义，而是因为西方绘画里确实有大量关于“狂热”和“群体”的思考。

Maja：明白。

Altay：另外，我的背景也影响我。我妈妈是蒙古族，我爸爸是汉族。我小时候在蒙古族部落长大，唱歌跳舞，像游牧民族那样生活。后来进入城市才逐渐学习中国文化。我做电影时，很多人说我作品比较“世界性”，我想可能是我在做更“人性”的主题，比如人性中的疯狂、本能、愤怒。我上一部片也是拍这种人性里动物性的愤怒。这种东西属于所有人，不分国界。

Maja：这部电影是在北京拍的吗？

Altay：对，那个“城堡”其实是北京郊区一个停用的赌场，我们租下来改造的。我小时候上课的画室原本只是个别墅，但我那时很小，觉得它巨大得像逃不出的城堡。长大再回去看，才发现其实很小。所以我选择把片子放在一个更宏大的“城堡”空间里，象征那种封闭与恐惧。

Maja：而且雕塑也很有压迫感。

Altay：我们特意选了黑白。彩色会显得没那么可怕。黑白让石膏像“人脸”一样，当它们被打碎，就更让人不安。整个空间被这些人脸盯着，就会产生恐惧。我上一部其实是拍蒙古的故事。那部片是在瑞士Freiburg拿了短片最高奖，他们给了我很多资金，这才让我拍了这一部（笑）。我感觉瑞士挺喜欢我。

Maja：那这次在这里，观众的反馈怎么样？

Altay：目前很好！在party上大家都来祝贺我。放映后我都会留下来和观众聊天。很多观众说他们喜欢这个片子，因为“好看，不会想睡觉”，但也“不至于太深刻”——我觉得这是夸奖（笑）。他们觉得看完有思考，但不会太沉重。

我其实想让片子更“好看一点”，甚至带点 commercial 的方向。观众缘很好，但评委缘我就不知道了（笑）。

有观众身体不适中途离场，我猜是因为音量太大。中国影院的音量本来就比欧洲大很多，我想让观众感受到那种强烈的冲击。

Maja：是的，确实音量习惯不同。那我还想问关于90这个角色。看他时我会想到日本漫画里的角色。为什么让他是全白色、白头发的形象？

Altay：我想90是“无性”的。片子里其他男孩都特别有男性特征，而九十像一个无性的存在。我发现小男孩聚在一起时，特别爱谈性别。如果你缺少“男性特征”，就会被孤立或霸凌。大家会用性别相关的脏话，展示“man”的感觉。

我演的那个角色，是带头的那种“big dick vibe”。我其实想讨论这种“男性狂热”。拍完我甚至担心观众会“厌男”。但如果全是女生，也会有类似的暴力，所以这和男女关系不大。

我觉得男孩有自己的一套system，像狼群一样。在十五六岁这种原始阶段，他们渴望力量，还处在动物性的状态。

Maja：那你觉得，这是不是他们考不上好成绩的原因？九十被霸凌是因为他成绩好。

Altay：是，其实在真实生活里，最让我难过的是——现实中90画得很好，但没考上；而带头霸凌他的人反而考得很好。那些人其实很聪明，会观察、会站队。

大师（Master）最惨，他其实有几次选择机会，但都错过了timing。一位瑞士观众看完片子说：“大师一点都不可怜，因为他每次都错过时机。” 我觉得这个评论很残酷但现实。

Maja：对，这样悲剧就产生了。那我也想问一个制作层面的：对你们来说，这个项目最大的挑战是什么？在拍摄或剪辑的过程中？

胡英海：我先补充一下刚才那个关于九十为什么他全身是白色的。其实最初我们想到的就是要让九十穿白衣服、染白头发。其实是因为最后他被绑在那个大笼子上，而开场时老师一直在强调这个雕像是“被俘的奴隶”。我们要做的是让被绑的九十和“被俘的奴隶”之间产生某种关系。其实“纯白色的人”代表的是一个绝对纯净的人，但他在一个狂躁、甚至肮脏的环境里，是不被接纳的。其实这也是一种隐喻：他不只是讲中国的事，也可以包含所有世界的历史。比如我们为什么要砸那些雕像，像伏尔泰（Voltaire）这些石膏像，都是欧洲著名的历史人物、象征理性光辉与智慧的哲学家或思想家，但他们都被砸碎了。

所以九十象征的是一个最纯粹、最纯洁无瑕的人，但当他面对一群狂热的人时，他就会被击碎。这种事件无论在中国历史还是西方历史中都屡见不鲜——关于一个纯洁的人如何在疯狂的环境中无法生存并被排斥的状态。

所以白色是出于这个考虑。我们在布置场景时也加入了很多石膏像——其实中国画室里不会有那么多石膏像，但我们故意买了非常多，把房间堆满。所有石膏像都是历史人物，是理性和智慧的象征，他们“看着我们”，但又离我们很远。我们让这些像摆满整个空间，再把它们砸碎。这是刚才那个问题的补充。

Altay：制作方面——虽然这是一个high budget的片子，很贵，但我觉得这不难，因为我受到了很多电影节的支持，他们给了我很多钱。最难的部分其实是我自己又演又导。

你看到我在里面是演员，又是导演。最难的是平衡。因为这是我自己的真实经历，想到它我会非常情绪化。这个片子也要做得很emotional，但这种情绪化的东西又需要绝对理性来控制。光平衡这一点就已经很难了。

在现场，我没办法立刻从感性变理性。演完之后立马变导演状态也不行。虽然最后很多镜头没用，但我需要时间去调整回来。

到了后期问题更明显，因为我不能确定我是否真的从这件事里走出来。一个导演要把自己的真实经历拍好，必须已经看透它。但那时我还不知道我有没有“get over”。所以脑子里有各种noise，又怕自己做不好——毕竟那么多人帮我、那么多钱。

当时我以为我失败了。所有问题都聚在一起，我只能坐在剪辑房里哭。我就觉得：不就是一个小短片吗，怎么这么难？觉得自己没演好、没导演好、搞砸了。后来我每天给自己写小日记，关于片子的想法，最后写了四万字。每天记录调整思路，最后团队也来帮忙。对我来说，最困难的就是平衡和掌控整个体量。这个片子的体量是我从未 handle过的，压力特别大，尤其是群戏——好几组人同时表演。第一部短片还很聪明，就两个人对话，很轻松。这次却是复杂调度、多人群戏，非常疲惫。我们拍的时候每天拍二十多个小时，只睡四小时。

胡英海：不过在现场就像打了鸡血一样。尤其到夜戏，大家后半夜特别困，群众演员容易松懈。国内很多群众演员都是做行活的，不是专业演员，只是来挣五十块钱的。

所以调动他们的情绪很难，但Altay做得非常好——他自己演孩子王，又在调动大家的情绪。为了让所有人都疯狂，他自己要先疯狂。尤其到后半夜，他能把所有人带进癫狂状态。群众演员、工作人员都特别愿意配合。很多表演都是自然流露出来的。

Altay：而且有些表演我们用了体验派的方法。比如Master角色，他后来跟我说他觉得我在片场“霸凌”他。他觉得我太苛刻，但其实我是故意让他体验被孤立的感觉。因为他本人是个“老好人”，从来没被孤立过，演不出那种状态。

我小时候被霸凌过，知道那种感受，所以我让大家别和他说话，让他体会那种孤立。他真的开始觉得我们不理他，结果演得特别好。后来我们成了好朋友，但他现在还笑着说我当年“欺负”他。

我觉得这些表演都非常真实的状态。我们拍的时候演员提前一周进组，在那个画室生活。那地方真的成了一个画室，每天大家就那样生活。

而最讽刺的是，当年欺负我的人，现在真的开了一家画室，成了老板。当时他还想投资我，不知道我这片子讲的就是他（笑）。我去见他的时候，他还特别热情：“哎呀兄弟，好久不见！”但他真的没意识到他当年在霸凌我。他觉得那只是“闹着玩”。我特别震惊，也觉得很心碎。但这也让我意识到——很多霸凌者根本没有“霸凌意识”。

其实我后来又遇到很多暴力事件。拍这片子两个月前，我还被同学揍了。当时我有两个剧本，一个爱情片、一个是现在的HYENA。我本来要拍爱情片，是很 commercial 的项目、还有大公司准备投的，但那次被揍改变了我的人生，我就决定拍HYENA。

Edyta（邓煜曈）：我喜欢奉俊昊那种，在 commercial 和 arthouse 之间找到平衡的方式，这是我们的目标。

Maja：那你们现在准备新的项目吗？

Altay：当然，我们现在有两部在筹备。一部是我的第一部短片的长片版，是蒙古族的故事——父亲绑架儿子去山上出家当和尚。

Edyta：这是个关于身份认同（identity）的故事，想拍成法中合拍片，一个跨国公路片。讲一个蒙古人生活在法国或纽约，面对 identity crisis 的故事。

Altay：里面会有蒙古宗教的象征、超自然元素（shamanism），我自己在庙里生活过，那种生命与死亡观让我震撼。因为我当时真的在庙里生活过，跟师父聊了很多。他带给我的震撼，不是那种表面的、形式上的东西——不是说你穿上袍子、把头剃掉就算修行了——而是那种真正走到内心深处的思维方式。你会被他对死亡、对生命的态度深深打动。那种态度和我们生活在城市里的人完全不同。我当时就觉得，这个片子一定会让人震撼——因为它让你看到另一种生命的态度。其实蒙古人对生命的看法是非常独特的。比如蒙古人的葬礼方式——羊吃草，人吃羊，人死后被放在草原上让狼吃掉，生命循环。