China’s 3 Dreams

NICK TORRENS | AUSTRALIA | 2014 | 84'

“In the 1970s, we had three dreams: a watch, a wireless and a bicycle”. What are the dreams of the Chinese people today?

Filmed over an 11-year period, Nick Torrens’ film about China in the modern world is an exploration of the missing years – the years of the Cultural Revolution. This period is rarely talked about and is expurgated from the history taught in schools, and yet have left a traumatic imprint on every Chinese family.

In exploring this “missing history”, Torrens introduces us to a young woman, Zhang Lei, from an ancient village in southwest China and follows her search for an understanding of the past and the present life around her. Confused by silences and half-truths, China’s young people, like Lei, have new dreams to guide them: to make China rich and powerful, to find a better material life for themselves, and to find a meaningful existence.

Filmed without narration and free of “outside” analysis or polemic, Torrens presents an intimate collaboration with his main subjects and their families and others who were willing to talk about their time as Red Guards or Rebels during the Cultural Revolution, and to see those years in perspective.

By AFI Award-winning Director Nick Torrens, this absorbing documentary about the changing face of China is both intriguing and confrontational.

Credits

Director: Nick Torrens
Producer: Nick Torrens
Language: Subtitled
Awards: Best Documentary, Film Critics’ Circle of Australia; Best Documentary, Singapore International Film Festival; Grand Jury Winner, Best Documentary, Hong Kong World International Film Festival; Grand Jury Winner, Audience Award, Los Angeles World International Film Festival