Made in China

A woman’s lover and her ex-boyfriend take justice into their own hands after she becomes the victim of a rapist. Because some acts can’t be undone. Because man is an animal. Because the desire for vengeance is a natural impulse. Because most crimes remain unpunished.

Mixing interviews, rare archival footage and film extracts, the film shows how Melville's works were impacted by what he experienced in his youth during WWII, and how it structured his whole approach to cinema, not only in its thematic but also in its aesthetics.

Observations of three varied corners of China’s garment industry: workers in a large-scale production line factory; a designer who rallies against the mass-machine-production of clothes and has created the eponymous hand-made collection called ‘Useless’ (Wuyong) for Paris Fashion Week; and finally the simple life of increasingly out-of-work tailors in small town Fengdang.

In 1912-1913, movie pioneer Gaston Méliès, brother of Georges Méliès, did a ten month long trip around Asia-Pacific, shooting both documentaries and fictions on location in Polynesia, New Zealand, Australia, Java, Singapore, Cambodia and Japan. He wanted the “real” thing” he filmed, with the locals, being one of the first to give Polynesians, Maoris, Aborigines and Khmers a chance to appear on screen. His hybrid cinema dealt with questions of alterity, identity and representation.

Pierre Schoendoerffer revisits his life and career, with a strong focus on the impact that his experience as a war cinematographer for the French army during the Indochina War had on him.