short film: a journey to the west by lawrence chen

Take a moment to watch this nicely-made little short film, A Journey to the West by Lawrence Chen. In it, a rural Chinese cobbler finally earns enough money to travel to Beijing, and what he discovers there is a world completely unlike his own. I like that the story's simple and told without dialogue.

It's not a sneaker commercial. At least, I don't think it is. (You'll see what I mean.) Very interesting comment on China and globalization though.

Lawrence, a graduate of Duke University, was invited to screen the film this year at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival: 2009 Trinity Grad Invited to Cannes Film Festival. For more information about this work, check out Lawrence Chen's website here. (Thanks, Henry.)