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“This used to be a cherry orchard”: a video interview with Ryuji Otsuka

Ryuji Otsuka’s film Beijing Ants (2014) explores the consequences of his family’s eviction from a Beijing apartment. From the Open City Documentary Festival.

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Rental prices in mainland China have been rising since 2000. And Beijing holds the record, with the cost of renting having almost trebled.

Navigating an unregulated world – where spoken agreements weigh as much as written contracts – Otsuka, his wife, and their one-year-old child set out in search of a new place to live, encountering a number of obstacles on their way.

Otsuka’s work deals with the universality of the human lived experience, especially in a pan-Asian perspective. Originally Japanese, he moved to China in 2005.

His previous film production analyses the themes of law, marriage, citizenship and belonging.

openDemocracy Author

Donato Paolo Mancini

Donato is a London-based journalist with a background in social anthropology and economics. His work has appeared in The Times, The Guardian, The New York Times, Al Jazeera, VICE, and other publications. He tweets @donatopmancini.

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openDemocracy Author

Dea Gjinovci

Dea Gjinovci is a SOAS alumna and recently graduated from UCL with a Master Ethnographic and Documentary film. She is now based in Paris and pursuing a research master in social anthropology at l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). She tweets @dea_gj.

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