ELEGY FOR THE LOST
UK | 2025 | 29 min | col / bn | English, Chinese
A film-essay in which memory and resistance in China are interwoven to bring to light the tension between socialism and neoliberalism that is tearing the country apart. A young migrant recalls the relationship she had with a member of an underground theatre company in Beijing: her voice is mixed with interviews, archival and found footage, recollections, and AI-generated images, which make up a lyrical and fickle mosaic. Fragments from Fei Mu’s Spring in a Small Town (1948) sneak into the narrative, thus destabilising it: the regained masterpiece of Chinese cinema questions memory as a force capable of disrupting all balance. Adopting a queer aesthetic, Elegy of the Lost explores the conflicts between intimacy and repression, precariousness and exile, desire and imposed silence, where personal wounds intertwine with an obstinate search for new forms of shared life. (T.P.)
Local Time
- Timezone: America/New_York
- Date: 08 Nov 2025
- Time: 10:30
Location
- Cinema Astra - Piazza Cesare Beccaria, 9 50121 Florence (FI)
Organizer
-
William Hong-xiao Wei
William Hong-xiao Wei is a filmmaker and film theorist based in Edinburgh. He earned his PhD in Film Studies from the University of Edinburgh, where he has also taught cinema. He is the author of Poetic Cinema: Reframing Film Aesthetics through Traditional Chinese Poetics (Edinburgh University Press, 2026). His experimental short films have been showcased at renowned film festivals globally.
