Award-winning documentary about the irreplaceable sense of community in a diminishing traditional neighborhood of Shanghai, told from the reflections of a bus driver and his 12-year-old daughter.
The rapid increase in prosperity and the international modernization of Shanghai has been implemented on a mass scale at the expense of the displacement of lower-income traditional Chinese communities. As residents of a Shikumen area known as Lan Yan, Mr. Zhang and his daughter reflect upon the sense of closeness and community he and his neighbors have experienced for over a century, even in their cramped living conditions. Lan Yan captures the essence of this community as a window in time before the neighborhood is doomed to be swept away by the surrounding high-rise metropolis.
A film by Jamie Oliveira, Danielle Schmidt, Pawara Soh, Lu Xin, Qian Ling, Wang Ting, and Zeng Lingzi in collaboration with the four week long International Documentary Workshop between San Francisco State University and Shanghai Normal University.