A film about a popular neighbourhood in Beijing, and what happened there in relation to the 2008 Olympic Games. Qianmen is a popular neighbourhood in the very heart of Beijing, just south of the Tiananmen Square. In the perspective of the 2008 Olympic Games, the city decided that the six hundred years old neighbourhood has to be “rehabilitated”. It is now in the line of fire of the promoters, and the 80000 people living there are facing drastic (and dramatic) changes. The film follows the rapidly changing life in the neighbourhood for more than a year and a half, from one reality to another, completely different one. Little by little, fragment per fragment; the film is drawing a portrait of a neighbourhood, recording memory of a soon disappearing reality. A story of China today.
Harun Farocki
January 9, 1944 born in Nový Jicin (Neutitschein), at that time Sudetengau, today Czech Republic.
1966 – 1968 Admission to the just opened Berlin Film Adacemy, DFFB.
1966 Marriage with Ursula Lefkes.
1968 Birth of the daughters Annabel Lee and Larissa Lu.
1974 – 1984 Author and editor of the magazine Filmkritik , Munich.
1998 – 1999 Speaking about Godard / Von Godard sprechen, New York / Berlin. (Together with Kaja Silverman).
1993 – 1999 Visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
2001 Marriage with Antje Ehmann.
Since 1966 more than 100 productions for Television or Cinema: Children’s TV, Documentary Films, Essay Films, Story Films.
Since 1996 various solo- and group exhibitions in Museums and Galleries. 2007 with Deep Play participation at documenta 12.
Since 2004 Visiting Professor, 2006 – 2011 full Professorship at the Academy of Art, Vienna.
2011 – 2014 longterm project Labour in a Single Shot, together with Antje Ehmann.
July 30, 2014 died near Berlin.