Beijing Taxi, Miao Wang

Beijing Taxi is a portrait of China’s ancient capital as it undergoes a profound transformation. The film takes an intimate and compelling look at the lives of three cab drivers as they confront modern issues and changing values against the backdrop of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Through their daily struggles, infused with humor and quiet determination, Beijing Taxi reveals the complexity and contradictions of China’s shifting paradigm.

Bontoc Eulogy, Marlon E. Fuentes

This docudrama examines the Filipino experience at the 1904 St. Louis World ’s Fair, focusing on the filmmaker ’s grandfather, an Igorot warrior—one of the 1,100 tribal natives displayed as anthropological “specimens” in the notorious Philippine Village exhibit. A unique fusion of rare archival images and carefully orchestrated visual sequences shot in the present, Bontoc Eulogy is an original and innovative investigation of memory and the spectacle of the “Other” in turn-of-the-century America.

Beijing Taxi and Bontoc Eulogy are presented concurrently with Global Cities, Model Worlds and The World Finder.

Miao Wang and Marlon E. Fuentes.

Beijing Taxi and Bontoc Eulogy is supported by the College of Architecture and the Arts, University of Illinois at Chicago, and a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.