Shanghai, Sept. 6, 2010 -- Director Bas Roeterink's new documentary HAPPY STREET: JOHN KÖRMELING aired on Ductch TV and will screen in Shanghai on September 11. Roeterink is also the editor of Gan Chow's 2009 documentary The Red Race. Here is what the director had to say about the film.
HAPPY STREET: JOHN KÖRMELING was made for about 40,000 Euros, which Roeterink.characterizes as a low budget film. The film was well underway when it attracted the interest of a producer in Rotterdam.
"I didn't have any funding when I started," says Roeterink. "So I paid for everything myself."
Starting with a strong interest in following designer and architect John Körmeling and almost no money, Roeterink did everything himself from shooting and sound to directing and editing. But the hard work paid off when the producer sold the documentary to Dutch TV before it was even entirely completed shooting. It aired on May 7, 2010 and is traveling to various international film festivals.
It will be shown at Shanghai's unique "1933Shanghai" slaughterhouse-turned-art venue on September 11, 2010 at 08:00 pm with an entrance fee of 20 rmb.
"I started filming John Körmeling in 2007. in that year he won the competition for building the dutch pavilion at expo 2010 Shanghai. I live and work as a freelance filmmaker in shanghai since 2005.
Körmeling has been one of my hero's for 15 years now. He is not a real architect, more a designer, with very original ideas and solutions. So it was pretty exciting for me when I finally convinced him to let me shoot him. He hates cameras.
I just showed up every time he was in Shanghai, hanging around him with my camera untill he kind of got used to me. During the next 3 years we became friends and thats why I decided to make it a rather personal documentary. A lot of close ups. Let him talk to the camera (I was hiding behind it), as if he is talking to the audience.
The result is a movie in which you see an unusual architect working in China for the first time. And, despite frustrations, he loves it here.
"Here in China they probably like it more than people in Holland do. Dutch people will ask:"How much does all this cost?" and "Is it necessary?". While in China they like extreme ideas."
The chinese construction workers love to work with him, they feel he is one of them.
The migrant workers have a nickname for the architect. They call him 'farmer'.
On the other hand, the officials of the Dutch government don't know how to handle him and don't show much respect. There is a very embarrassing scene in the film in which our Prime Minister asks about where he got the idea from, but won't listen to Körmeling's answer.
And at the background, we see the pavilion taking shape."
53 minutes, Dutch/Chinese/English spoken. English subtitles.
http://www.1933shanghai.com/ 1933Shangahi's Glass Theater, 29 Shajing Lu, Shanghai tel: (0)21 6888 1933
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