The tension between economic development and respect for the past is clear in Xiangzidian Village: The Stage, in which filmmaker Sanshou Hu documents the construction of a highway in his native village in northwestern China between 2020 and 2024.
Step by step, we see the construction progress, from bulldozing earth and stones to laying the asphalt road surface. The project comes across as an unstoppable juggernaut for which the living and even the dead must make way: houses are demolished, and even the cemetery must be cleared.
As in his earlier work, Hu brings the past to life. In voice-over, the director himself tells the story of the villagers, whom we see walking along the unfinished highway as though it were a vast stage. Hu devotes considerable attention to his own family history and does not shy away from painful personal matters: his grandfather and uncle, for example, literally came to blows over ownership of family land when it was sold for the construction of the highway. The conflict caused a deep rift in the family.
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