TA'ANG

Director Wang Bing / 2016 / Hong Kong

"Wang's camera seems to melt away, as, paradoxically, his subjects become accustomed to his intimately distanced presence." – Cinema Scope

As armed conflict rages in Myanmar's north-east, tens of thousands of refugees flee across the Chinese border. Many of these belong to the Ta'ang minority, an ethnocultural group that has long been locked in struggle with Burmese government forces. Some advance toward their next temporary campsite with gunshots still ringing in the distance; yet, even in these difficult conditions, life's everyday duties and interactions must go on.

Depicting four days and three nights of this journey, Ta'ang is another formally radical investigation into human hardship by documentarian Wang Bing (‘Til Madness Do Us Part, MIFF 2014). Training his camera on everything from mundane conversations to the eerie sight of tents illuminated by sugarcane plantation fires, Wang offers a striking and compassionate insight into the refugee experience.

"One of Wang's most memorable and impressive works to date." – 4:3

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