FAWC Fellows Film Screening at PAAM: “Que Sera Sera” (2018) and “something out there” (2024) by Mengwei Ma and “Co/lapse” (Unrevised Edition)” by José De Sancristóbal

Please join us for an evening film screening, featuring three films by FAWC Fellows Mengwei Ma and José De Sancristóbal, in conjunction with the FAWC Fellow exhibition on view at PAAM through March 23. Free and open to the public. (Please note there is Mature Content in some of these films.)

Que Sera Sera (2018) On a visit to the dull town in which her friend Meng lives, Tiancheng attempts to liven the place up by projecting her crazy fantasies on the townspeople. Will Meng play along like when they were kids?

something out there (2024) When China finally opened up to the world and claiming “Covid is over”, there is a couple who linger around the stairway of their apartment, not ready to confront with “something out there”.

“Co/lapse (Unrevised Edition)” is a short-film that explores the various implications of a central concept: recognition.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Mengwei Ma

Mengwei Ma is a writer, director, and actress from Zibo, China. After earning her MFA in Film Directing from Columbia University in 2017, she has been based in Beijing, working on independent projects. For Ma, the artistic process is about discovering the true connection between the self and the world. And she enjoys it. She is currently in the midst of fundraising for her new short film, “A Piece of Shit,” while also developing a feature film script and a novel.

I have never deliberately set themes in my films. In my creations, it’s often the story or the characters that come first. It’s simply the desire to understand and portray a character, the urge to tell a story or conduct narrative experiments, that drives the creation of these images. However, undeniably, after these films met the audience, I gradually discovered that they all point to a certain kind of nostalgia, a certain familiarity and fear of loneliness, and a certain necessity to connect with others.

Que Sera Sera, 2018

I made this film when I was 25. I was about to graduate from film school and return to my hometown in China after seven years in the United States, ready to dive headfirst into the booming film industry. The dramatic life change that was about to occur felt like a monster hidden in the fog. I vaguely glimpsed its enormity but never consciously acknowledged its true existence. Looking back now, however, I can see the shadow of that monster in this short film: the absurdity and uncertainty that come with growing up, the awkwardness of being caught between two cultures, and the fear of constantly choosing and losing something. The story was inspired by a diary entry I found from years ago, written before my childhood best friend, Zhou Yang, who plays Meng in the film, moved away. In that diary, I worried that her moving would change many things, but that we would always be best friends. When I reread that diary, I had already been studying film abroad for years, and she was about to graduate and become an accountant. We could hardly call each other “best friends” anymore, and the worries and regrets I had felt back then had long since vanished. What I was nostalgic for wasn’t our “friendship” itself, but rather those vanished anxieties about our friendship Changing.

something out there, 2024

 In 2020, Covid-19 rampaged across the world from China. With stringent policies effectively controlling the outbreak’s spread, it also resulted in China’s seclusion. When three years had passed, and we finally opened our doors, Covid swept through like a gust of scorching Saharan wind, only to disappear without a trace. It left behind people living in a suspended time. At that moment, I felt as if I stood on the threshold to the real world, but lost the courage to take a step forward. This film was shot for that period on the threshold, with the hope of preserving something amidst the wind.

José De Sancristóbal

José De Sancristóbal is an artist and wannabe translator. For the past three years, he’s used photography, video, film, and writing to consider different functions lens-based images perform within the configuration of the nation-state. Informed by photography’s history as a tool to regulate citizens and their movement, his work muddles established modes of identification by considering them against unmeasurable forms: fiction, memory, translation, and magical realism hinder those devices tasked with supervising self and belonging—such as passport photographs, migration regulations, biographical information, or national borders.

 Co/lapse (Unrevised Edition)

 Co/lapse (Unrevised Edition) is a short-film that explores the various implications of a central concept: recognition.

Formally part essay, part documentary, the imagery in “Co/lapse” is mostly derived from a mise-en-scene consisting of 3 simultaneously-operating camera POVs. Two of the cameras adopt (not without liberties) the front and profile subject-framing of mugshot images, while a third frames this practice of police identification within a biblical narrative of recognition, namely the one depicted by Caravaggio in “The Supper at Emmaus” (1602).

Conceptually, the work is made by exploring three approaches to practices of recognition. Each of these approaches is presented in the voice of a different character: a translator, a photography scholar, and a migrant living in New York City. These voices are in constant tension and dialogue, the entanglement of their discourses mirrored in the montage strategy that juxtaposes religious and police imagery. At its core, the work attempts to sidestep the ocular-centrism of the camera in favor of political action, proposing a reconceptualization of “recognition” that does not revolve around images, but rather around the reorganization of social relations and categories.