Coal Money
(Tong Dao)

Directed by Wang Bing.
China, 2008, digital video, color, 53 min.
Mandarin with English subtitles.

Wang’s short documentary follows the trail of improvised commerce and hard cash described by a convoy of trucks carrying coal from the mines into the countryside. The hard, even bitter, bargaining and accusations of thievery that erupt at each juncture suggest the free market system to be based on an ever-sliding scale of distrust and insecurity.

PRECEDED BY

  • Brutality Factory

    Directed by Wang Bing.
    With Xu Ning, Wu Gang, Wang Hongwei.
    Portugal, 2007, digital video, color, 16 min.

Wang’s first narrative film reenacts one of the notorious “struggle sessions,” extended show trials to test the loyalty and patriotism of individual party members that were among the more disturbing practices during the early years of the Maoist regime. A segment from the omnibus film The State of the World, Wang’s short returns to the lost world of the factories seen in ruins in West of the Tracks while also channeling the story of a victim of socialist zealotry recounted in Fengming.

Part of film series

Read more

The Epic and the Everyday. The Films of Wang Bing

Current and upcoming film series

Read more

Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith

Read more

The Yugoslav Junction: Film and Internationalism in the SFRY, 1957 – 1988

Read more

From the Jenni Olson Queer Film Collection

Read more
a double-exposed image that includes a 16th century Russian man being fed grapes by another amid decadent decor

Wings of a Serf

Read more
a close-up of a Bissau-Guinean woman wearing a scarf on her head and looking directly at the camera with a slight smile

Le Dépays + Sans soleil

Read more
Peter Sellers wearing a large hat with "ME" embroidered on it, and gripping a Pilgrim-like collar

Carol for Another Christmas

Read more

Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy