City Dream(HKAFF 2020)

For years, Wang Tiancheng has supported his family through a newsstand that he expanded into a fruit stall. When urban planning requires all street vendors to clear out, he vehemently refuses and takes the fight to Wuhan’s urban management bureau. Over a year-long standoff, city administrators and the irascible Wang deploy every trick in the book to get the other side to back down. Director Chen Weijun is known for capturing the realities of Chinese society in award-winning documentaries like To Live is Better Than to Die and Please Vote For Me. His latest account of man vs. government vibrantly chronicles what happens when state-backed visions of a better-looking city clashes with the dreams of migrant laborers trying to make a living in the city.