Oscar-shortlisted 'Ascension' captures chase of the 'Chinese Dream'

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Oscar-shortlisted 'Ascension' captures chase of the 'Chinese Dream'

Oscar-shortlisted 'Ascension' captures chase of the 'Chinese Dream'

Filmmaker Jessica Kingdon travelled to 51 locations across China on a quest to document everyday scenes showing the country's economic progress and the growing class divide.To get more chinese entertainment news, you can visit shine news official website.

The result is 'Ascension', her debut feature which has been shortlisted for the Oscars and which Kingdon hopes will get audiences reflecting on the universal aspects of consumerism.

An impressionistic fly-on-the-wall documentary featuring no interviews or narration, 'Ascension' takes viewers on a visual journey through the Chinese social classes. Structured in three parts around the themes of labour, consumerism and wealth, the film juxtapositions the lives of its subjects.Starting off with scenes of hordes of workers looking for low-wage jobs, Kingdon takes viewers to assembly lines, private bodyguard and butler schools, and a crammed waterpark.

She captures former U.S. President Donald Trump's "Keep America Great" merchandise in mass production at one factory and workers at another chatting away as they assemble high-end sex dolls.

"The intention is really to create space for an audience to experience the images and sounds without passing judgement, but rather experiencing it and sitting with it, rather than trying to make sense of it and categorise it," the New York-based filmmaker told Reuters.

Kingdon, who is Chinese-American, was inspired to make 'Ascension' after shooting her 2017 short film "Commodity City" in the world`s largest wholesale market in Yiwu, China, and witnessing its excesses of materialism.

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