︎


FILM TRILOGY - 1

ON THE MARGINS

This short documentary film is a glimpse into an ordinary day in an ordinary village in China, with whom we’ve been working with since 2015. Villagers there are a tiny grain of the country’s 295 million floating population, whose families are often in a state of dissolving. They are rural migrant workers, the real force behind China’s unprecedented urbanisation, but their stories are rarely told. The 12-minute film is to share a moment with them. Though their lives might seem far away and very different from one’s own, we hope a connection might be forged through the agency of film.

As architects who use film as a tool to tell stories, we experiment with a series of time-based spatial collages that highlight the crucial role of thresholds in conditioning an intergenerational, interdependent way of living that is somewhere between the family and the collective. We call this the architectural reconstruction of filmic space and time.

ON THE MARGINS (v.2023) has been awarded the Architecture Short Film Award at the Milano Design Film Festival︎︎︎(2024), the Best Short Film at Venice Architecture Film Festival︎︎︎(2023) and the Special Mention at Arquiteturas Film Festival︎︎︎(2023).  
 




CURRENT SCREENING


Ripple Ripple Rippling

Architectural Association, London, UK. (Till 7 December 2024)



PAST SCREENINGS

2023 Edition 

Rotterdam Architecture Film Festival
Rotterdam, Netherland, Oct.2024

Milano Design Film Festival
Venice, Italy, Mar.2024

Venice Architecture Film Festival
Venice, Italy, Aug.2023

Arquiteturas Film Festival 

Porto, Portugal, Jun.2023



2021 Edition


Crisis / 3rd International Seminar Architecture and Ethnography

Santiago, Chile, Oct. 2022

St. Moritz Art Film Festival

St. Moritz, Switzerland, Aug. 2022

AvaTourismus with Mañana Bold x Atelierfrankfurt

Frankfurt, Germany, Nov.2021

Driving the Human Festival

Berlin, Germany, Oct.2021






ON THE MARGINS
Colour, Chinese, Eng-subtitle, 12min, 2023
Co-directed and edited by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng, Chen Zhan
Special thanks to Yizhuo Gao (2021–22) and Yunshi Zhou (2021)
for local filming support, and Laura Belinky (2021) for consultation. 









Architectural Reconstruction of Filmic Space and Time

Film clips from ON THE MARGINS (2023)
Co-directed and edited by Jingru (Cyan) Cheng & Chen Zhan
RIPPLE RIPPLE RIPPLING ︎
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 2015-2024.