Cine-East Film Screening: A True Believer

Film Screening: “A True Believer” (Liu Xiaolei, 2015, 80 min, China, in Chinese w/English subtitles, Color, Digital) / “A True Believer” is Liu Xiaolei’s inquiry into old but ever more important ethical dilemmas of good and evil, and the individual’s fate, as well as a filmmaker’s relation to the camera that could be many different things, like a detective device that could be used to “capture and punish,” something for the filmmaker to “hide behind,” or a medium to “experience the hurt” of those being filmed. “A True Believer,” a documentary that “took five years or so to make,” looks into the ethics and economics of pick-pocketing focusing on the self-righteous members of Falcon, “an anti-pickpocketing organization,” and the pick-pockets they chase. There is also an “Uyghur boy” that “appears” in the filmmaker’s life and changes many things, including his relation to his film./ About the Filmmaker:Xiaolei Liu, born in 1984 in Dalian city, graduated in TV editing and directing from Liaoning University. He worked in DDATV for one year, established a culture and media company for three years, and then engaged in producing advertisement, documentaries, and feature films as a freelancer. He participated in the Memory Project 2014 and completed his documentary A True Believer in 2015. / Presented by Duke University Libraries.