Yumen is a boomtown in northwestern China abandoned by the authorities once oil production there dried up. This experimental, decentered portrait of the present-day life of a city haunted by the past is the result of a collaboration bringing together Sniadecki and artists-turned-independent filmmakers Xu Ruotao and Huang Xiang. “Yumen is a haunting, fragmented tale of hungry souls, restless youth, a wandering artist and a lonely woman, all searching for human connection and a collective past among the town's crumbling landscape. Part ‘ruin porn’, part ghost story, and shot entirely on 16mm, the film brings together narrative gesture, performance art, and socialist realism into a wounded and radiant musical that not only plays with convention and defies genre, but also pays homage to a disappearing life-world and a fading medium.”—J.P. Sniadecki