Winner of the Mecenat Award for Best Documentary at the Busan International Film Festival, Republic is a nest of six-square metres, an anarchic space and hideaway down one of Beijing’s narrow alleyways. Here young Chinese hippie Li Eryang has created an experimental ‘socialism in one room’, inhabited by a bunch of young Beijing misfits dedicated to listening to music, and passionate discussions about human society, drugs, and the cosmic order. But the dream is threatened by a whirlpool of Eryang’s heavy online loans, gambling, and debts. Following in the footsteps of Wang Bing, Chinese director Jin Jiang’s fascinating ‘creative documentary’ is brilliantly filmed with an unobtrusive camera that never leaves the room, seizing spontaneous, melancholic, and immersive moments inside the Republic. This revealing and unexplored facet of contemporary China provides a unique time capsule of youth trapped in hopes and promises.

Notes by Marie-Pierre Richard, programme curator & co-organiser, East Asia Film Festival Ireland & EAFFI Discoveries.