Words Fly Back to the Black Earth
Xiao ZHANG • 2025
A calling inhabits the blank pages, unfolding a secret writing of hers. The unseen written traces seep from the murmuring land, pushing through fragmented voices to become new forms, beings made material. Framed as a dialogue with my grandmother, this film explores an alternative form of personal writing by Chinese women in political shifts, absent and abundant. The 'blank' becomes an image, carrying a search for agency; of land transformed and of women unheard. By breaking down linguistic structures, the film opens a space for imagining, reading, and performing, allowing for emergence.
Director
Xiao ZHANG
Xiao Zhang is a filmmaker and artist based between Dongguan, China, and Los Angeles. Their work centers on personal poetics derived from intergenerational memory, marginalized culture and mythology. They consider film a haptic medium, a lucid space of traces, absence, and exile.
They hold an MFA in Film/Video from California Institute of the Arts and a BFA from Beijing Film Academy. Their work has been shown internationally at festivals and museums including the MoMA Doc Fortnight Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival, Hong Kong International Film Festival, CROSSROADS, Beijing International Short Film Festival, REDCAT (Los Angeles), and Tai Kwun (Hong Kong), among others.
FILM STILLS
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