107 mins - Singapore / China 2023 - Subtitles - Documentary
Director: Jin Jiang
Winner of the Mecenat Award for Best Documentary at the Busan International Film Festival,
REPUBLIC is a nest of six-square metres, an anarchic space and hideaway down one of
Beijing’s narrow alleyways. Here young Chinese hippie Li Eryang has created an
experimental ‘socialism in one room’, inhabited by a bunch of young Beijing misfits dedicated
to listening to music, and passionate discussions about human society, drugs and the
cosmic order. But the dream is threatened by a whirlpool of Eryang’s heavy online loans,
gambling and debts. Following in the footsteps of Wang Bing, Chinese director Jin Jiang’s
fascinating ‘creative documentary’ is brilliantly filmed with an unobtrusive camera that never
leaves the room, seizing spontaneous, melancholic and immersive moments inside the
Republic. This revealing and unexplored facet of contemporary China provides a unique time
capsule of youth trapped in hopes and promises.
(Marie-Pierre Richard, programme curator & co-organiser, East Asia Film Festival Ireland &
EAFFI Discoveries)
FESTIVALS & AWARDS:
Mecenat Award, Busan International
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