Catalogue > Un extrait vidéo au hasard

A collaboration with and a commission by NPO Koganecho Area Management Center as part of Chong’s residency at the Koganecho Bazaar, which is located in the former red-light district of Koganecho, Yokohama, Japan. Koganecho was the conceptual reference for ‘hell’ in Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 film High and Low. However, because of the district’s notoriety, shooting on location became far too dangerous for the cast and crew. HEAVEN HELL looks to restage the past and present representations of the red-light district by shooting the slum scene on the same street that Kurosawa had initially intended but was unable to do so. Chong referred to the film scenes that Kurosawa shot in the studio in order to re-create the eerie and hyper-theatrical mood of the infamous street in both the traditional and contemporary periods; recruiting local youth in the now gentrified neighbourhood of Koganecho. HEAVEN HELL takes the point of view of the kidnapper/villain, using his entire dialogue in the film compressed into a single moment through the slums, past and present, expressing the toll it has taken on him and the class he was relegated to.

CHRIS CHONG CHAN FUI is a filmmaker and artist who works between Southeast Asia and Canada. From digital and analog moving images to fabricated and organic objects, Chong works to reveal unfamiliar narratives. His work layers the social and natural sciences with transnational circuits of globalization and manufactured cultures and landscapes. With a rigorous research methodology and a formalist aesthetic, he uses structure and constraints as a creative path toward expressive innovation. Chong has exhibited at such venues as the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, Palais de Tokyo, EYE Film Institute Netherlands, and the Gwangju Biennale, while premiering films at the Cannes Film Festival's Directors’ Fortnight, BFI London, and TIFF’s Wavelengths, where he won back-to-back awards for Best Canadian Short Film. He is a Smithsonian Institute fellow (National Museum of Natural History), a Ford Foundation fellow, and a Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Arts Fellow. Chong holds an MFA (film) from York University and is an Assistant Professor (film) at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts on the unceded territories of the S?wx?wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), s?l?ilw??ta?? (Tsleil-Waututh) and x?m??k??y??m (Musqueam) Nations.