Lili
Asked to pose as a “China Girl” in a TV studio, Lili uncovers the hidden history of women whose white skin has been used as a technical standard for film colour for over a century. Through archival footage, found material and documentary recordings, the film exposes how this seemingly neutral cinematic practice reflects and reinforces a deeply rooted bias against colour and people of colour.
In a TV studio a girl named Lili is asked to serve as a so-called China Girl. China Girls, used in cinema history since the 1920’s, are women with Caucasian skin who are filmed alongside a colour-chart in order to adjust the colours of the film. They have no dialogues to memorize or characters to impersonate. All they have to do, is have an impeccable white complexion. Their skin – white as porcelain – is used as a reference for the colour grading of camera and printing, ultimately excluding people of colour who do not conform to this implicit norm. Lili tells the story of one of these China Girls through archival material, found footage and documentary recordings, and questions the tradition of China Girls contextualized in a society, which, according to anthropologist Michael Taussig exemplifies chromophobic uneasiness with color.
The film will be screened together with The Ceiling.
An van Dienderen
An van Dienderen is a Belgian filmmaker and scholar whose work explores media, power, representation, and social inequality. She holds a PhD in Comparative Cultural Sciences and is a professor and senior researcher at KASK & Conservatorium in Ghent. Her internationally acclaimed films have been presented at major festivals and museums worldwide, including MoMA, FID Marseille and CPH;DOX. Her work is distributed internationally.
Reżyseria: An van Dienderen
