Green Grey Black Brown
2024 · 10m · China
Directed by Wang Yuyan
Genres: documentary, experimental
Tones: contemplative, dark, surreal
An experimental documentary that collages footage of artificial flower factories in Dongguan, China alongside images of petrochemical extraction and ecological ruin, exposing the circular logic connecting synthetic manufacturing, plastics, and the human compulsion to replicate nature industrially.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Twelve-minute installation piece originally for the Gwangju Biennale, looping a slowed-down 1980s rock track over artificial-flower-factory footage in Dongguan and calling it a nature doc — that's art-world logic and exactly the kind of biennale piece I find genuinely interesting. Farocki/Stratman comparisons earned.
Wang Yuyan's Gwangju Biennale commission operating on art-world rather than cinema logic — collaging artificial-flower factories with petrochemical extraction — is exactly the Harun Farocki-Deborah Stratman essayistic lineage I admire. Twelve minutes; conceptually rigorous.
12 minutes, Gwangju Biennale gallery commission shown via TIFF's Vimeo with public domain license — Wang Yuyan loops Dongguan artificial-flower factories against petrochemical extraction over a slowed 1980s rock track, calling synthetic plants a Jurassic flora. Art-world commission and gallery-as-cinema lineage is real; this is a serious essay-film.
Reviews
An enchanting procession of images, revealing the flawed rationale behind techno-solutionist visions of the future.
Philosophical science fiction that exposes the dark underbelly of the plastics and tech industry.
Festivals
- CPH:DOX 2025
- IndieLisboa 2025
- DokuFest 2025
- Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival 2025