Globalisation through the marble route
A reflective and critical documentary, but with touches of humour, by the Californian director Sean Wang can be seen throughout the month of February at different venues in the city.
Does globalisation have points that border on the surreal and absurd? The documentary A Marble Traveloge, by Californian director Sean Wang, proves that it does. Wang takes the audience on a journey from Greece to China. In the Mediterranean country, large blocks of marble are extracted from a quarry and transported to the Asian giant. There, skilled craftsmen turn the blocks into Greek-style sculptures and columns. The leftover fragments are transformed into small fridge magnet souvenirs and shipped to Greece, where shops will sell them, in many cases, to Chinese tourists. Sean Wang's journey is a reflection, with a touch of humour, on authenticity, tradition, international relations and the global economy, a film that is a production between the Netherlands, Hong Kong SAR China, France and Greece, and which DocsBarcelona has chosen as its February documentary. The film premiered in 2021.
Along the way, a variety of people appear who play a role in the cyclical chain of consumption: the Chinese businessman who has taken over a Greek marble quarry, the workers and their children in a souvenir factory in Quanzhou, a French marble merchant based in China.... The Chinese-speaking twin daughters of a Greek businessman who runs a tourism and migration service are recurring characters in the film, and as cultural ambassadors they accompany their father on his business trips to the Far East.
A Marble Travelogue, nominated for the IDFA award for best Dutch film of the year, will be screened at the Cines Girona on 2 February; at the Esquerra de l'Eixample - Agustí Centelles Library, on 15 February; at the Lluïsos d'Horta, on 17 February; at the Teatre de Sarrià, on 19 and 27 February; at Casa Elizalde, on 21 February; at the Auditori de Sant Martí on 23 February; and at the Vilapicina i la Torre Llobeta Library, on 28 February.
More information on this link.