Merry Christmas, Yiwu

94min or 55min, original Mandarin version with English subtitles

Synopsis

Communist ideals have long lost their value in Yiwu, a city with 600 Christmas factories, in which Christmas as we know it is produced for the entire world.
With rising wages, the workers in Christmas factories can now afford newest iPhones, but they still live in crowded dormitories. All migrants in their own country, nostalgic for some place far away, some miss their families left in hometowns, other miss their friends and lovers from the factories when they go home for holidays.
Young generation is already tired of long factory hours, chemical fumes and glitter particles, and they do not care for their parents‘ wishes to get educated. Stuck in between Chinese tradition and the newly discovered Chinese dream, they want their own businesses, to be rich, to be independent, to be in love.

Festivals/awards

2020
IFFR Rotterdam
27 Hot Docs from Toronto as an online event
24 Ji.hlava IDFF
FFOS Osnabrück
doclisboa