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Broken Lines

Xu Ruotao

Release year: 2012

Run time: 49 mins

Film type: Fiction

Synopsis

Two surveyors, a policeman, a man and a woman about to get married, a photographer and his two female assistants: these people are dissatisfied with their lives yet seem unable to change. After a day and night, they meet in a sandpit in the suburbs. After a fight, everyone disperses, leaving only the police behind...

 

Director biography

XU Ruotao, a visual artist and a filmmaker, born in Shenyang in 1968, lives and works in Beijing. He began his career in the early 1990s by joining the then renowned avant-garde Yuanmingyuan Painter's Village. He has worked in a variety of media, including painting, video installations and graffiti films, as well as the 3D animated short film Beijing Changping Qiliqu Temporary Shelter (2008). His first experimental film, Rumination (2009), was nominated for the Dragon Tiger Awards at the 29th Vancouver Film Festival. In 2012, he collaborated with JP Sniadecki and Huang Xiang on the film Yumen, which was selected for the Berlinale and the Mexican Film Festival. In 2012 he also collaborated with Xue Li on the short film Broken Lines, which was selected for the 9th Beijing Independent Film Festival and the Asian Experimental Film and Video Art Forum. His other films include Expressionism (2013-2017), Ants Dynamics (2019), and Ink Cowboy (2022).