Lengshuijiang, a small city in Hunan Province, was built around the Xikuangshan mine, once known for the world’s largest deposit of antimony and as the “antimony capital of the world.” During the two world wars, this isolated mountain region exported nearly 80 percent of the world’s antimony products.
Antimony Capital News was originally a documentary news program produced by the local television station. In the film, early broadcast footage is intertwined with images from the set of The Local Records of China - The Chapter of Lengshuijiang, creating a timeless narrative in which the reality and continuity of “news” no longer exist. What remains are images that say little beyond the process of their own birth.
Process notes
The work begins with local television archive from Lengshuijiang and the Xikuangshan mining region, but it does not treat the archive as a transparent record. By cutting the early Antimony Capital News footage against the film set of The Local Records of China - The Chapter of Lengshuijiang, the work turns regional news language into a visible production mechanism: the place is being narrated, staged, and made useful at the same time.
The expanded image dossier follows both sides of that mechanism: a television anchor and Xikuangshan townscape from the broadcast archive, then antimony ingots, a mine corridor, an ore cart and a mine shooting process from the production images. Put together, the archive and production images show how the film moves between official narration, extractive landscape and the making of a local image.
Festivals / screenings
- 2023, KUANDU Film Festival, Taipei, Taiwan
- 2022, Image Forum Festival, Tokyo, Japan
- 2021, Made in China Festival, Rennes, France
- 2021, Mǎo International Film Week, Guangzhou, China
- 2020, Tokyo Lift-off Film Festival, Tokyo, Japan
- 2020, Beijing International Short Film Festival, Beijing, China
- 2020, 22nd Belo Horizonte International Short Film Festival, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
- 2020, It’s All True International Documentary Film Festival, São Paulo, Brazil
Exhibitions
- 2024, Pathway of Life, Outside Art Space, Beijing, China
- 2023, Fluidscape, Unique Art Center, Chengdu, China
- 2021, Poem and Video Art, Jiazazhi, Ningbo, China
- 2019, Panorama 21, Le Fresnoy, Tourcoing, France
Links / references
- Le Fresnoy: Antimony Capital News Official Le Fresnoy project record.
- BISFF official selection: Antimony Capital News Official Beijing International Short Film Festival film page.
- Art Image: Antimony Capital News Public production and creator record around the film.