Chinese director Wang Bing has been announced winner of the Golden Leopard, the top award at the 70th Locarno Film Festival. Wang receives the award for his 90-minute film Mrs. Fang (2017), the account of an elderly woman living in rural China, who suffers increasingly from Alzheimer’s disease.
Wang came to international prominence with his epic Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks (1999–2003), a nine-hour-long documentary undertaken over four years, which charts the decline of an old industrial district of Shenyang, in northeastern China. Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks, Mrs. Feng and other works by Wang are included in a dedicated screening programme of the director’s work in Documenta 14.
21 August 2017
