Piano in a Factory
NYU Skirball Center
Q&A Post Screening with director Zhang Meng
April 12th, 7 PM
Set among the “lost generation” of workers in the heavy industrial area in northeastern China who were hit by the policies of reform and economic openness in the 1990s, we see them rekindle their skills and rediscover the joy of working.
When Chen’s estranged wife (QIN HAI-LU) reappears asking for a divorce and custody of their daughter, the young musician decides she will live with whoever can provide her a piano. When efforts to borrow money and even steal a piano fail, Chen (WANG QIAN-YUAN) concocts a preposterous plan – to make a piano from scratch! He persuades a bunch of reluctant but loyal misfit friends to help him forge the instrument in a derelict factory from a heap of scrap steel.
