Ghost Town is a three-part feature documentary telling the stories of a community of Lisa and Nu ethic minorities living in a remote town in China’s southwest Yunnan province, on the border of Tibet and Burma. Once a vibrant county seat, the town of Zhiziluo has now been abandoned to local peasants.
Ghost Town made its world premiere at the New York Film Festival in 2009.
Zhiziluo is a ghost town full of life.
Lisu and Nu minority villagers squat in the abandoned halls of this remote former communist county seat, where Cultural Revolution slogans fade into the shadows of the old city hall, and a blank white figure of Chairman Mao gazes out silently to the wild mountain wilderness of the Salween River Valley in China’s southwest Yunnan province. (Description continued below).
The film has a three-part structure:
“VOICES” tells the story of Yuehan, the pastor of the local Christian church, and his 87 year-old father, John the Elder, a formerly jailed Lisu pastor who was among the first in the region to study with Western missionaries before they were expelled in 1957. “Voices” exposes the personal rift between Yuehan and his father as well as questions over the past and future of the church.
“RECOLLECTIONS” is a story about two young lovers faced with substantial cultural and economic obstacles. The young man, Pu Biqiu, must decide whether to leave the ghost town for brighter prospects in the city, and his girlfriend faces the possibility of being sold into marriage to help the family with its financial woes.
“INNOCENCE” tells the story of Ah Long, a twelve year-old boy who lives alone in the ghost town and idles his days away with youthful games. After toying with the ghosts of Lisu tradition (the boys revel in a traditional Lisu exorcism), Ah Long hurries off to church.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT:
When China took the brutal path of the Cultural Revolution, it lost sight of the most fundamental understanding of the value of human life.
In the decades following this national tragedy, as Chinese busied themselves becoming materially prosperous to the point of sacrificing their own well-being, they once again lost sight of the cultural and spiritual meaning of life. What little was left of our culture again faced extinction.
In this film I wanted to explore the idea of these lost histories and ravaged cultures, and by extension my own cultural identify, by delving into the lives and spirit of the ghost town of Zhiziluo.
5 Responses to Ghost Town (废城)
I would love to have more information on the
Lisu and how they have or have not continued in
the faith that the Christian missionaries brought to them in the 1930′s before they had to leave because of encroaching communism.
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We are a Spanish NGO supporting some Chinese NGOs that work with Chinese minorities in Yunnan province. I have seen the trailer of Ghost town, and I found it extremely interesting.I would like to know how could we get the full film, in order to share it with our chinese counterparts as well as for sensibilization of our spanish audience. Thank you very much, Nieves
Dear Sheila Smith, The Lisu continue to pursue their traditional ways, including forestry, in Southwestern China and in Myanmar. Many are Christian and in their Christian communities, their churches tend to be quite large and active. I have a friend in Myanmar who is a female Lisu pastor of a mountain Lisu community with a church membership of 1,000 — and coincidentally, her name is Sheila.
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