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About this project

Told through the lives of three taxi drivers, BEIJING TAXI is a richly textured film that viscerally captures an era of China in transition.

Please visit the site for the trailer:
http://www.beijingtaxithefilm.com

WHY PLEDGE?

** BEIJING TAXI has been officially selected for WORLD PREMIERE at SXSW 2010!!! **
http://www.indiewire.com/article/sxsw_film_festival_lineup/

Three years in the making of my first feature length film, I have lived and breathed the true meaning of a labor of love. The film has been fortunate to receive small grants from the Sundance Documentary Fund, New York State Council for the Arts, Jerome Foundation, and fiscal sponsorship from Women Make Movies; each has helped push the project along at crucial moments. The film has also received recognition and support from Tribeca All Access, IFP Filmmaker’s Lab, and IFP Market, gaining momentum and exposure for the film along the journey. I am deeply grateful for my family, friends, and all the individuals who have contributed.

BEIJING TAXI is now one month away from the finish line. We need YOUR HELP to make this happen! EVERY DOLLAR of your pledge will go DIRECTLY to the post-production facility to finish the film and bring it to SXSW! Our fundraiser challenge: if we don't reach the $11,000 FUNDING GOAL on its due date we get nothing.

If you prefer to make a TAX-DEDUCTIBLE donation for an amount of $2500 or more, please make the check payable to:
Women Make Movies - Beijing Taxi
c/o Miao Wang
59 Newell Street, #3R, Brooklyn, NY 11222
You will still get the Associate Producer credit.

The last day to pledge is FEBRUARY 14, on the auspicious day of Chinese New Year! Please help us spread the word by forwarding this email, posting on your blog, Facebook/Twitter, or website! Please help us ring in the year of the TIGER with a RARRRRRRRR!

IMAGES of the HANDMADE FLIPBOOK: http://www.beijingtaxithefilm.com/shop.html
IMAGES of the HANDMADE ARTBOOK DESTINATION UNKOWN: http://www.beijingtaxithefilm.com/bjbookslide.html
IMAGES of the ARCHIVAL ART PRINTS - The quiet beauty of another side of China close to my heart: http://www.beijingtaxithefilm.com/prints.html

WHAT IS THE FILM ABOUT AND WHY WOULD I WANT TO SUPPORT IT?

BEIJING TAXI is a feature length documentary that vividly portrays Beijing undergoing a profound transformational arch. Through a humanistic lens, the intimate lives of three taxi drivers connect a morphing city confronted with modern issues and changing values. With diverse imagery combined with a contemporary score rich in atmosphere, we experience a visceral sense of the common citizen's persistent attempts to grasp the elusive. Candid and perceptive in its filming approach and highly cinematic in style, BEIJING TAXI takes us on a lyrical journey into fragments of a society riding the bumpy roads to modernization. Though the destination is unknown, they continue to forge ahead.

Born and raised in Beijing, I moved to the US in 1990 and returned to visit only three times in 15 years. The colors, textures, sounds, and characters of my childhood city always remained present in my memory. As the Olympic fever ushered in a new era of unprecedented transformations in Beijing, the timing was ripe to capture an era of transitions. I wanted to capture the juxtapositions within the old and the new Beijing, and most importantly, to experience how the lives and mentalities of people on the ground have been affected. I have had countless raving conversations about the unique characters of Beijing taxi drivers, with their notoriously gregarious and quintessentially Beijinger personalities. Taxi is not the focus of this film, however, it is a cinematic device and the thread that unravels the story of the common citizens’ struggles in this morphing city.

I started this project with a mission to illuminate the humor, heart, and the humanity of a slice of this massive culture and people. It is very important to me to present a humanist look into the Chinese society, in an era when China has been portrayed mainly in a dehumanized way in Western media. It is a film portrayed from my point of view as an emigrant Beijinger, as a native and an outsider. The old China is like an intimate childhood dream, while the China of a new era is ushered in by a historical event. I wanted to transcend the nostalgia and a child’s remembrance of things past for the Beijing of my childhood and rise to an understanding of the Beijing of the Olympic era. It is in the end a film that takes you on a journey to experience the complex contradictions China faces today, through a down-to-earth understanding of the common citizens’ persistent attempts to grasp the elusive. The world is changing faster than they can keep up with, but they will keep on going, and forge ahead.

Project location: New York, NY

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