Film Screening and Discussion with Artists

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 at 7:30PM
Powell Family Cinema, Jeanine Basinger Center for Film Studies
Wesleyan University | 301 Washington Terrace | Middletown, CT
Free admission

No Rule is Our Rule
2023 / China/United States / 76 min
documentary
Directed and Produced,by Eiko Otake, Hui Wen
Edited by Yiru Chen, Eiko Otake, Hui Wen

This is a story of friendship between two independent female artists and the body memories each willingly carry. In January 2020, New York-based, interdisciplinary performing artist Eiko Otake arrived in Beijing to visit Wen Hui, a Chinese choreographer and filmmaker. Eight years apart in age, Eiko grew up in postwar Japan and Wen in China during the Cultural Revolution. They planned to visit each other for a month to converse and collaborate.  Yet the surge of COVID-19 abruptly cut off Eiko’s visit and the pandemic made Wen’s visit to the USA impossible—but not the collaboration. Looking back on the video diaries they shot without a script, Eiko and Wen continued their dialogue on Zoom, sharing past works that form a deeper understanding of their circumstantial differences and characteristic similarities. No Rule is Our Rule was selected for the Munich New Wave Film Festival and won Best Feature Documentary at Japan International Film Festival last year. 

Co-sponsored by Wesleyan University’s Allbritton Center, Center for the Arts, College of Film and the Moving Image, College of East Asian Studies, Dance Department, Fries Center for Global Studies, and Office of International Student Affairs. Hui Wen’s travel to the United States was supported in part by the Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation.

Wesleyan University