SYNOPSIS
After years of delay, a long-planned journey finally begins. The filmmaker imposes a quiet rule: only one shot per day. This self-imposed rhythm becomes a daily ritual of observation, recording, and reflection. What emerges is a filmed diary—a chronicle of wonder that maps both external landscapes and internal states. Each image carries a lingering question: what does it mean to continue making films? Through unfamiliar territories, filmmaking transcends documentation to become an act of presence and an attempt to rediscover meaning. The result is a meditation on cinema itself—its persistence, solitude, and transformative power over the everyday.
REVIEW
Argentine filmmaker and writer Santiago Loza arrives in Shanghai for a two-month residency. The strangeness of a city with almost nothing in common with Buenos Aires becomes the seed for Chinese Days.
Structured as a brief prologue, 36 diary entries, and an epilogue, this essay film follows Loza as he navigates a new environment. He wanders the city like a flâneur, yet remains as alert as a traveler, attuned to every fleeting moment. At times he loses his way, but even this becomes a source of inspiration. Through it all, he remains a filmmaker: each diary entry captures a single scene, each infused with reflections on cinema.
How does a record of daily life become a cinematic image? How does experience turn into story? As the diary numbers grow, the words and images trace the gradual shifts within a filmmaker living far from home. Framed by riverboat views of the city at the film’s beginning and end, Chinese Days suggests that this transformation will continue long beyond the frame.
DIRECTOR'S NOTE
A trip to China. I had a plan to navigate that strange stretch of time: to film one shot per day with a camera someone had lent me, and to write notes and read them aloud. That trip took place just as my country was entering an abysmal political process, and that experience deeply colored everything. This is a film made of streets, temples, animals, and movement. Along the way, doubts and questions began to emerge. Chinese Days is a surrender to the drift of the journey, and the constant longing to dissolve into that captivating landscape.
CONTACT
Compañía de cine
paulina@companiadecine.com
@companiadecine
