"We always say that we can make this movie in so many different countries. It depends on ten years."

"Those sex dolls are handmade," Jessica Kindon said of the toys that appeared in her new documentary "Ascension", which premiered locally during SFFILM's Doc Stories and then at Roxie's. Virtual Cinema opens wider on Friday/12.

The scene of the sex doll factory is one of the most striking scenes in the Kingdon movie. The film explores the economic dimension of the Chinese dream and examines the labor, consumerism, and class of a communist country that is paradoxically also super-capitalist. . (Read Dennis Harvey's review of Ascension here.)

There is no narrative, only images. Because Kingdon’s camera observes that workers at the bottom of society try to simply find jobs to support themselves and their families. People try to become social media influencers by defining their own personal brands, thus socially and economically. Upward development, and the excesses of the rich.

There are also scenes where people simply work, including the ladies in the sex doll factory, trying to create high-quality products. "These are good jobs," Jinden said. "They have artificial intelligence components. They are very creepy, but they may cost $10,000. These dolls are not suitable for mass market audiences. You have to have a lot of money. This is very professional labor."

When the Communist Party came to power in 1949, Jin Deng's grandparents fled China. Nearly 70 years later, she returned to her ancestral country and created a short film "Commodity City", which depicts how the nominal communist society became the birthplace of globalism and capitalism. The focus at the time was Yiwu International Trade City, which was the world's largest wholesale market for cheap consumer goods, flooding the world. 

That experience prompted her to explore further. Initially, she tried to make a trilogy of more environmentally friendly shorts, focusing on production, consumption and waste. But then the people she was marketing wanted to know why she didn't plan a feature.

"This is actually something I have always wanted to do, but I never thought I could really do it, because there are not many movies happening in this vignette landscape," Jindon said. "But it gave me the courage to try and do it."

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Ascension has 51 locations, from ordinary workplaces to butler schools and water parks. Surprisingly, access to her location has never been a problem. “The places we filmed are not obviously politically sensitive. People are very curious, so they are willing to let new people come in to shoot, and many of these places are places where people sell things,” Jinden said.

One location that Jindeng and her team did search for but inaccessible was a toxic lake where waste from the mining metal used to power our smartphones was stored. The site is hidden, although she was able to capture photos of the polluted water-with mixed results.

"I think it's obvious that you need to smell the chemicals from your heart, but visually, it looks like water and a bit muddy," said Ascension producer Kira Simon-Kennedy.

One thing Kington emphasized is that although her film takes place in China and is about the Chinese experience, it actually has a wider range of shots. Those labor and those commodities serve the global economy. And those at the top who enjoy wealth are also part of the global community.

"It's about this interconnection," Jinden said. "Even if you may look at the plastic water bottle recycling factory and think it looks strange, in fact, it is very relevant to your life. We drink water from water bottles now. Therefore, you will see, process and There are many things to interact with, which we are very familiar with and rely on.

"But the source that makes it possible is usually invisible. I try to create space for the instinctive experience of these sites related to the industrial supply chain."

"We always say that we can make this film in so many different countries, it depends on ten years," the producer and cinematographer Nathan Trussdell added. "It may be Britain in the 1800s, or it may be the United States in the 20th century.

"A lot of manufacturing has moved out of China. Now, it's in many parts of Africa. Ascension is almost a snapshot of how it is currently happening in China. But because of the way global capitalism works, it will go elsewhere."

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