Merry Christmas, Yiwu

Synopsis

Communist ideals have long lost their value in Yiwu, a city with over six hundred Christmas factories, where Yuletide as we know it is produced for the entire world. With rising factory wages, most workers can now afford the latest phones, but they still live in crowded factory dormitories, migrants in their own country. Caught between Chinese traditions and the newly discovered Chinese dream, they want to start their own business, get rich, become independent and fall in love. A portrait of a place where communism and globalism intersect, leaving neither unchanged.

Bio/Filmo

Mladen Kovačević (Belgrade, 1979) studied film directing in Belgrade, London and Cape Town. He set up Horopter Film Production and has made the films Unplugged (2013), Wall of Death and All That (2016) and 4 godine u 10 minuta (2018), screened at l'Alternativa last year. He is currently working on Koryo, to be shot in North Korea.

⇨ Watch Mladen Kovačević's introduction to Merry Christmas, Yiwu on YouTube.

⇨ Watch our interview with Mladen Kovačević on YouTube.