Americaville Q&A at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Hong Kong, hosted by Teele Rebane of CNN.

The poster advertising Americaville's screening at the University of Hong Kong.

For educational institutions the film can be streamed on Kanopy:

I also just released an ebook designed as an accompaniment to Americaville, as well something for those interested in the wider phenomenon of architectural minicry in China. The ebook is made up of images and insights from two years of fieldwork and production in Jackson Hole, China, as well as research on other similar developments:

I also wrote a piece for The Diplomat Magazine, advertising Americaville's streaming release, as well as reminiscing on my time producing the film in Jackson Hole, China;

It was a delight to return to Wroclaw, Poland in October 2021 for MiastoMovie to present Americaville to my first in-person audience in a long while (photos above). The Land of Many Palaces, my first feature documentary film, opened the festival back in 2016. 

After attending IDFA in Amsterdam with a group of my students, I returned to the University of Cambridge in November to run a workshop on documentary filmmaking for anthropology students, followed by my homecoming screening of Americaville and Q&A at my former college of Peterhouse (photos below).

I was featured on the Passport podcast. For this episode on Jackson Hole, China, the hosts interviewed the original project manager of Jackson Hole, the American designer of the community, and me about shooting "Americaville" in the town. Listen here.

Q&A with the Salem Film Festival...

​At least there were some in-person screenings during the summer in Europe, that I zoomed into for the Q&A sessions, like this event in Vienna, Austria...

I was delighted to win "Best Feature Documentary" at ArchFilmLund in Sweden...

​It was super to return (albeit remotely) to the Pakhuis de Zwijger in Amsterdam to discuss the production of the film...

I'm hoping to return to in-person screening events at some point in 2021. For more information visit www.americavillefilm.com/about 

See below for a preview of my short film "Nightworld" shot in Chongqing, China with scaler daredevils posted on one of their Instagram accounts. The full film has been screening at festivals.

Above: photographs and an interview from Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

Below: photograph and interview from the screening at the USC.

While living and teaching film in China during early 2017, I spent 3 weekends shooting "Nightworld" in Chongqing - one of the world's largest, but strangely unknown, cities with a population of over 30 million. The film was entirely shot at night, beginning as a study on urban night activities throughout the city, with an emphasis on performance. While shooting and researching the city, I came across a community of scaler daredevils, who climb buildings and structures throughout the city and take photographs that are later posted on Instagram and Chinese social media accounts. It took a while to build a line of communication and trust with the community, as what they do is technically illegal. On my second trip, I managed to meet with two mute-deaf scalers - Cao Yu and Liu Zhixin - who climbed together and agreed to let me follow them. Their journey throughout the city, climbing various structures, became the backbone of the final short film, from which I build out other shot and night scenarios of the city. The final film plays just under 6 minutes, is without dialogue, and features music by Rob Scales who I worked with on "The Land of Many Palaces" and "Americaville"

Trailer:

I returned to shoot in Jackson Hole over Christmas 2015 and Easter 2016 to capture the reaction of the townspeople to losing the ability of defining themselves on their own terms. This criticism they received had a profound affect on the general mood of the town, but my main character Liu Hua seemed initially undisturbed and intent on continuing to live her dream life in Jackson Hole. The two shoot trips were made possible by the support of the Bruckmann Trust.

Above left: The Jackson Hole Children's Choir organise themselves to performs carols on Christmas Eve in the Jackson Hole church.
Above right: Some of my documentary characters enjoy Christmas dinner at Liu Hua's home.

Above: Liu Hua prepares a cake for her husband over Easter.

Above: My interns QiYuan and KeHui from the Beijing Film Academy during the Easter shoot.

I attended Sheffield Doc Fest 2016 to pitch my film to the Whicker's World Foundation. I walked away with the runner-up funder award, while "Burma's Lost Royals" won the 80k grant. The grant will allow me to continue shooting for the rest of the year.

Above: Taking audience questions at Budapest Architecture Film Days.

Above: The introduction to our screening at the Millennium International Documentary Film Festival in Brussels, Belgium.

Above: We screened at the Copenhagen Architecture Festival alongside the great new documentary, "Chinese Dreamland".

Above: "The Land of Many Palaces" picked up the Best Directing award at the Moscow International Documentary Film Festival.

Above: We screened at the beautiful Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn, Estonia.

I'm thrilled "The Land of Many Palaces" won "Best Newcomer Feature Documentary" at the IAFOR conference in Kobe, Japan last year. The film will go on tour around the IAFOR conferences around the world in 2016.

The North American tour for "The Land of Many Palaces" came to an end on April 18th with a final screening in Toronto, Canada. I traveled non-stop for three months throughout the US and Canada to screen the film to a variety of different audiences, in many types of venue, including, film festivals, independent theatres, universities, organisations, museums, and schools. I also focused on garnering press about the film and Ordos.

Here are some photos from the tour...

Taking questions at the Film Expo for the Association of Asian Studies Annual Conference in Chicago, Illinois, on March 27th 2015. The conference was a great opportunity to promote the film to the Asian Studies community.

A digital promotion banner for the film and taking questions from the audience at the Asia Society in Houston, Texas, March 4th 2015.

Sign board and the audience for "The Land of Many Palaces" screening at The Loft Cinema, Tucson, Arizona, March 3rd 2015.

The red carpet on the opening night of the Miami International Film Festival, March 6th 2015. "The Land of Many Palaces" screened in Little Havana on March 8th.

Screening at the Human Rights Film Festival in San Francisco, California, on April 10th 2015.

"The Land of Many Palaces" Q&A session, hosted by Robin Smith, Hot Docs Programmer, at Innis Town Hall, Toronto, April 18th 2015.

On the second day of the festival we screened "The Land of Many Palaces" at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, followed by a screening at Metro 4 Theatre on the third day of the festival...

Both screenings were sold out and were followed by a lively Q&A session. 

You can read our interview with the Santa Barbara Independent here: