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This video is an analytical montage of shots extracted from more than 60 films from the Chinese Cultural Revolution period. It exclusively studies the moments of the interpellation of the Ideology (Louis Althusser) which are represented physically by music, words, gazes, gestures and situations found in these films. Strictly speaking, Ecstasy does not lend itself to a specific synopsis, but this does not mean that there is nothing to look at in it. The multiple symbols and meanings extracted from a wide range of shots make up the narratives found in this video: The resemblance of the music in different films, the dramatic gazes with catchlights (like they are absorbed by an overwhelming feeling of great excitement, where the title Ecstasy comes from), the repetition of the words (like “ Mao Zhuxi ”, Chairman Mao), the robotic gestures (raising one’s head, turning around), the faces with tears, the symbolic objects which reincarnate the transmission of ecstasy (like needle, spanner and apple) and the exaggerated film techniques (close-up, zoom in). This video is one of a series of videos and they are not only reexaminations of the cinema of that period but also reflections of history as told through cinema.

Di HU Born in Zhejiang, China. He studied Chinese Literature at Zhejiang University before going on to study cinema at several universities in Paris (Paris 1, Paris 7 and Paris 3). He became a film critic and scholar afterwards and started making video works in 2014. Since then, his works have been screened and exhibited in Stuttgarter Filmwinter, Cairo Video Festival, Dallas Medianale, Athens Digital Arts Festival, Images Contre Nature, Magmart International Videoart Festival, EXiS, Channels Festival, Korean Film Archive and the Australian Center for the Moving Images and Cinémathèque de Toulouse, among others. www.hudi-art.com