The Memo

30 minutes | 2023 | Documentary | Mandarin, Guilin Dialect | English and Chinese Subtitles
Canadian Premiere

Content Advisory: This film contains scenes of coarse language, violence, and may be triggering for the politically traumatized

The filmmakers used every medium possible to document the 2022 Shanghai lockdown—the “Come and See” moments, where the screams of ordinary people, the humiliation, the crushing, the trampling, and the forced forgetting are laid bare. True history is never far.

Badlands Film Group was founded by YANG Xiao and CHEN Sisi as a doc duo. Their works focus on the activities and memories of marginalized communities, striving to explore the aesthetics of resistance behind them. For example, The Memo documents the video activism of migrant labourers during the Shanghai lockdown period, while The Mountain Sings focuses on the tradition of improvised singing by Zhuang people in the midst of ecological changes.