DIRECTOR: JP Sniadecki | USA / China | 2014 | 83min
Cinema Verité as you’ve never before experienced, The Iron Ministry invites you aboard a thrilling long-distance train journey across China. We travel the class carriages from back to front and back again as the passengers eat, sleep, chatter, debate, buy, sell and exist – crammed together in a sensory explosion of sight, sound, smell and taste. Raw meat for sale hangs in the gangways, cigarettes are smoked and shared along with politics and religion, hawkers push their wares through the throngs of the third class carriage, and a young woman gazes out the window, wondering what fate her destination will bring. For anyone who still expects cinema to take them on a true journey to another place, The Iron Ministry is undoubtedly an essential big-screen experience.
Festival Appearances
New York FF, Locarno FF, Viennale, CPH:DOX, Torino FF
Screenings at Encounters 2015
CT: Mon 8 6.30pm CN V&A | Fri 12 6.30pm CN V&A | Sun 14 7.45pm CN V&A
Jozi: Sun 7 8pm Bio