Altid/Aldrig noget andet
Jenny Rossander & Sebastian Cordes / Denmark / 2024 / World Premiere / 22 min
Half symphony, half documentary. A poetic collage film about Chinese poetry, the secret life of translator Sidse Laugesen, and the art of translation.
Danish translator Sidse Laugesen has a secret alter ego existence in China as the award-winning avant-garde poet Lao Shuzhen. Through the poets Sidse herself considers important, we experience the Chinese poetry scene. We meet avant-garde poet Yu Jian, who lives in a museum where Ming vases are piled high with old sheet music and candy wrappers. We meet Zhai Yongming, feminist campaigner and head of a poetic cultural centre in Chengdu, where young and old come together over the power of poetry. We meet Wang Linyan, the new generation who collaborates with rock bands as much as other poets. We meet a mysterious train conductor who waits for nothing and a group of dancing women who routinely dance their way into the night. Through music, collage, associations and fragments of words, the film paints an emotional portrait of a culture that is usually beyond the language barrier.