Renowned visual artist Ou Ning's Meishi Street is both art and activism, calling attention to lives being destroyed in the name of progress.

Imagine being thrown out of your family home for little or no compensation. Now imagine your business - and only means of support - is knocked down at the same time. That's the story of Zhang Jinli, and hundreds of thousands of other Chinese citizens caught before the bulldozer of “modernisation”.

When director Ou Ning stumbled upon Zhang Jinli's story while filming just south of Beijing's Tiananmen Square, he was so intrigued by the charismatic restaurateur he decided to hand Zhang the camera and ask him to document his own story. The result is Meishi Street, a tale of a community's fight for just recompense and a record of the last days of an ancient neighbourhood sacrificed in the name of Beijing's Olympic makeover.

Ou Ning is a guest of the festival.

D/P/S Ou Ning, Cao Fei WS dGenerate Films L Mandarin w/English subtitles TD betacam/2006

Read an extended article on Meishi Street at Senses of Cinema.