Information
2024
Hengdian, a small county town, is known as the "Hollywood of China". There are about 130,000 extras living here. China's huge population, cheap labour and fierce competition have made some young people choose to "lie down" here because they don't want to work in the county town and get a fixed, hard and meagre salary, while some young people have dreams of becoming stars, leaving their hometowns and flocking to Hengdian, eager to become famous here.
However, behind this seemingly glamorous and beautiful film, many people can only receive the role of extras due to their lack of professional acting skills and mediocre appearance. They wander on the edge of the camera and become a "prop" and a "background board" of the crew. They survive here with a meagre income of 15 pounds every 10 hours. In the long waiting for casting and the daily waiting of being ignored, people gradually become lazy and gradually lose hope in unchanging life.
This is an ongoing follow-up project. I interviewed and filmed the real-life situations of extras to show their real lives outside the camera. What is touching is that they, who are used to performing in front of the camera, feel very uneasy, cramped and restrained under the lens of reality.