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EVENT, SCREENING, SCREENING + Q&A

Huahua’s Dazzling World and Its Myriad Temptations + It’s What Each Person Needs

Saturday, Mar 18, 2023 at 8:00 pm

Location: Bartos Screening Room

With Daphne Xu and Sophy Romvari in person 

Huahua’s Dazzling World and Its Myriad Temptations 
Dir. Daphne Xu. China/Canada/U.S. 2022, 82 mins. In Mandarin with English subtitles. In Xiong’an New Area, a government-planned city just south of Beijing, the earthy, energetic Huahua ekes out a life for herself and her family by livestreaming on the video-sharing app Kuaishou. Dancing and singing with a hustler’s desperate stamina, employing facial beauty filters while chatting gruffly with her followers, she projects herself into an idealized, virtual world without ever fully transcending the drab, domestic drudgery she daily occupies. Composed almost entirely of long takes, whose compositions position Huahua firmly within and relative to her physical and social environment, Xu’s film lays bare the irreconcilable distance between the self on screen and the self in space. New York premiere 

Preceded by 
It’s What Each Person Needs 
Dir. Sophy Romvari. Canada. 2022, 11 mins. By night, actor-artist Becca Willow Moss talks to lonely older men, prospective clients on a sugar dating website, while by day she regales lonely elderly women, retirees in long-term care facilities, with show tunes and traditional songs. She gives love because she doesn’t know how to love herself, she says. In this thoughtfully organized, docufictional portrait, Romvari probes questions of self-presentation, vulnerability, and authentic connection. International premiere 

Tickets: $15 / $11 senior and students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / discounted for MoMI members ($7–$11). Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission. Review safety protocols before your visit.


About the Filmmakers:

Daphne Xu is a Chinese Canadian artist and filmmaker exploring the politics and poetics of place. Her films have screened at Visions du Réel, Cinéma du Réel, and Art of the Real at Film at Lincoln Center. She is a Film Study Center Fellow at Harvard University and an associate of the Sensory Ethnography Lab.

 

 

Sophy Romvari is a Canadian filmmaker based in Toronto, whose critically acclaimed short films premiered at festivals such as TIFF, True/False, Hot Docs, and Sheffield. Her short documentary Still Processing (2020) premiered at TIFF before touring festivals worldwide. Still Processing premiered online through MUBI and was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award. She is currently in development for her first feature film.