Co-presented by Alula

About the program:

The Periphery of the Base (Dir. Zhou Tao, 2024, 53 min)

In the scorching heat of the desert, where the ground is blistering and the air thick with pervasive sand, an infrastructure project unfolds in the unforgiving natural environment. The scale of this endeavour is so immense that the individuals navigating through it appear minuscule in comparison. Within the haze of sand and dust, those who have relocated for the construction of the infrastructure, returning from a day’s toil, find their way back to the tented area hastily assembled. As the roaming lens of the camera moves through the living area and returns to the expansive terrain where this massive engineering project is unfolding, the sun begins to set. Trucks and figures gradually disappear into the swirling winds and sand. At this moment, the camera’s eye, constantly worn down by the persistent dust, suddenly loses its usual ability to discern light and shadow. Nevertheless, it persists in its attempt to capture, to the point where it seizes the abstract interplay of light and shadow in this world. The light itself becomes akin to etched marks on the virtual canvas of digital imagery, leaving behind traces and lingering impressions. (Berlinale)

The Rib of the Greater Bay Area (Dir. Zhou Tao, 2026, 70 min)

Over nearly two decades, China’s Zhou Tao has earned a venerated position as one of the most unique and surprising moving-image artists of his generation. One constant across Zhou’s practice is his ability to deploy basic filmic devices like composition, depth, and camera movement to play with perspective in ways that are not only visually dazzling but subtly political. Here, the artist recasts photogenic coastal locations from the Guangdong/Hong Kong/Macau Greater Bay Area famed for their social media virality by privileging the candid, the hazy, and the abstract over crisp poses engineered for likes. Constantly shapeshifting, with its scroll-like camera movements accented by a mix of on-site and sourced sound, The Rib of the Greater Bay Area is another transfixing entry in Zhou’s rich body of work. (MoMA)

About the artist:

Zhou Tao was born in 1976 in Changsha, Hunan Province. He studied at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and received a bachelor of fine arts in oil painting in 2001 and a master of fine arts in mixed-media studies in 2006. Currently lives in Guangzhou. Zhou finds visual and narrative materials for his arresting film works in the places and communities he encounters, and the narration of the film is often developed from the accumulation of the encountered moments. There is no single entry to Zhou's practice; through often subtle and humorous interactions with people, things, actions, locations and situations, his videos invite us to experience the multiple trajectories of reality—what he once called the “folding scenario” or the “zone with folds.” Although all of his footage captures actual scenes, the poetics of Zhou’s visual narratives dissolve the division between fact and fiction. For him, the use of moving image is not a deliberate choice of artistic language or medium, instead the operation of the camera is a way of being that blends itself with everyday life.

TRT: 123 min