A Town by the Yangtze

The film being shared as part of the Orphan Film Symposium is A Town by the Yangtze. This film focuses on Changshu, a small city notable primarily as the ancestral hometown of the filmmaker. The film highlights both the cultural heritage of Changshu, home to many notable poets and scholars, as well as the everyday life of its inhabitants, including farmers and fishermen. In keeping with this symposium’s theme of Water, A Town by the Yangtze shows the many ways that the river is woven into the lives of the people of Changshu. It depicts a bygone era for the city and the river, before China’s rapid growth and industrialization in the second half of the 20th century would transform Changshu into an industrial metropolis with a population of more than a million.