Noodle Kid
Huo Ning
Fourteen-year-old Ma Xiang leaves his home and works in a foreign metropolis as a noodle puller to pay off his father’s debts. Work is hard, growing up is hard.
A
Film Archive
Noodle Kid
Documentary Film
China
2019
107 minutes
subtitles:
English
Credits
Han Lei
Huo Ning
Huo Ning, Zhang Jiahao
Huo Ning, Han Lei, Shih Gary
Shen Hancun
Ma Xiang is fourteen years old and lives with his family in Hualong in the Chinese province of Quinghai. They belong to the so-called Hui Chinese who, unlike the Han Chinese majority of the country, consider themselves Muslims. At school Ma Xiang recites the Koran and visits the mosque. But in order to work off his father’s debts, he is sent to a far away city he doesn’t know, where his uncle Ma Yusuf operates several noodle restaurants. He is to be trained as a noodle puller. Life and work in the strange city are hard, Ma Xiang is badly paid and Islam is frowned upon. He is forced not only to take off his takke, his traditional hat, but also his glasses, because Ma Yusuf thinks that wearing glasses and making noodles are incompatible.
Huo Ning follows Ma Xiang’s journey which is also a journey to adulthood. The important thing is to find one’s place within an extremely patriarchal system and at the same time preserve one’s independence. Because Ma Xiang, whom we already got to know as a sensitive boy at the beginning of “Noodle Kid”, isn’t easily dominated. Too unbroken is his self-awareness, which also includes the desire to make contact with his mother who left Ma Xiang’s family many years ago.
Carolin Weidner
Huo Ning follows Ma Xiang’s journey which is also a journey to adulthood. The important thing is to find one’s place within an extremely patriarchal system and at the same time preserve one’s independence. Because Ma Xiang, whom we already got to know as a sensitive boy at the beginning of “Noodle Kid”, isn’t easily dominated. Too unbroken is his self-awareness, which also includes the desire to make contact with his mother who left Ma Xiang’s family many years ago.
Carolin Weidner
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
The Future That We Lost
Gao Wenqian
The animated drawings from the 19th and 20th century invite us to marvel and tell us how the people in the past imagined our present.
The Future That We Lost
Animated Film
China,
France
2018
8 minutes
subtitles:
_without dialogue / subtitles
Whales pulling little submarines and whole palaces borne in the air by hot air balloons traverse urban canyons to electronic sounds. The animated drawings from the 19th and 20th century invite us to marvel and tell us how the people in the past imagined our present. Will our ideas of the future also look so quaint later?
Marie-Thérèse Antony
Marie-Thérèse Antony
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.
Transit Circle
Stephan Knauss
Between concrete desert and nature, old and young, tradition and change, beats and emotion – always on the lookout. Director Stephan Knauss portrays a radically changing Chinese metropolis.
Transit Circle
Documentary Film
China,
Germany
2019
40 minutes
subtitles:
English
The metropolis looms in the night. No people, just scattered lights, sounds of cars, murmuring. A resolute woman talks of the good old days, while two young students are looking for their identity and place in this complex world. Even in the opening tracking shot, Stephan Knauss’s documentary illustrates a Chinese metropolis in transition. Between concrete desert and nature, old and young, tradition and departure, beats and emotion – always on the lookout.
Julia Weigl
Julia Weigl
The annotations to the films in the Official Selection were written by the members of the selection committee and guest authors. All quotes from DOK Leipzig catalogue articles must be identified as such and cite the author’s name. Some original titles and names have been transcribed resp. transliterated. We apologise that we cannot cite individual image sources and rights in our festival publications or festival coverage. Please note that the visual material is published exclusively for the purposes of promoting specific films or festival programmes. No transmission to third parties is provided and would only take place with the explicit agreement of the owners of the rights. The rights to the images lie with the respective copyright owners.