fra øst til nord

We were smart  我爱杀马特

directed by Yifan Li

Documentary |  125 min | Subtitles in English

Synopsis

We Were SMART tells the stories of China’s Sha-ma-te subculture. Based on in-depth interviews with migrant workers born in the 1990s and 2000s, this documentary film explores why younger migrant workers began expressing themselves through punk hairstyles. The film focuses on their hometowns, educational backgrounds, destination cities, factory lives and spiritual world.

WE WERE SMART offers a compelling yet sober portrayal of the alienated lives of China’s young factory workers, where their melodramatic nicknames, crazy hair styles and eccentric dances serve as creative means to search for the meaning of existence. The film uses self-filmed footages from the assembly lines, dormitories in China’s factories in the Pearl River Delta. Following the state crackdown of the workers’ SMART subculture, the film traces the end of factory life and the return to hometown for many. As the first film chosen by fra øst til nord’ curated program KINA-KINO, we’d like to invite audience in Oslo to explore China’s grassroots culrual landscape.

Director’s statement

As a filmmaker, I’ve always told the stories of the marginalized, powerless, or underrepresented. I feel their pain, their suffering, their powerlessness, and their frustrations because those have also been my experiences.

But when it comes to on my own story, I haven’t had the courage or strength to utter a sound, because exposing myself is hard, asking if I’m loved is harder, and facing the truth is the hardest.

But I can no longer use my fears as an excuse because my role has evolved. Now that I’m a mother myself, I see my mom with a different perspective. And that new perspective forces me to reckon with my past and face my fears. I hope that this process can help both myself and my mother walk out of the shadows and away from the pain that have plagued us for so long.