A River Runs, Turns, Erases, Replaces

Born in Wuhan, Shengze Zhu (Present.Perfect, 2019 Official Selection) had set out to make a documentary about changes in the city, draw up a sort of methodical and patient inventory of how its landscape is being re-composed on either side of the Blue River’s imperial and imperturbable course. Yet, the pandemic – with its epicentre in the city – injected another reality into the original plans. Opening out onto urban spaces where life seems to have come to a standstill, pre-lockdown images give fresh momentum to a film whose scales reflect the distances separating the filmmaker and Wuhan, and invent a touching connectedness with its inhabitants. JB