Video, 93 minutes, color, in Mandarin. English and Chinese subtitles. 2007
Divided into five segments, the film revisits the core groups that characterized China’s pre-reform society--workers, merchants, students, soldiers and peasants--to examine their status today, as the notion of wealth undergoes a reformulation and the time-honored farming culture is nearly disposed of in the name of modernization. Opening on an umbrella factory and using these utilitarian devices as a running theme throughout, Haibin offers an intensely personal close-up of his subjects and their struggles, observing their daily outines, their moments of weakness, their camaraderie and their isolation.
-----
Umbrella premiered at the 64th Venice International Film Festival as part of the Horizons Documentary program, and it garnered honorable mention at the 30th Cinéma du Réel Film Festival.