Welcome to Babel

Documentary following Chinese-Australian artist Jiawei Shen's plans to create an epic work depicting his homeland's tumultuous recent history.

His wife Lan Wang says it is crazy. But nothing can stop him on his obsessive mission to create a monumental 130 square metre painting of the turbulent history of Communism. Jiawei’s 10-year deep dive into the bloody history of revolution is counterpointed by a profoundly intimate portrait of his marriage to artist wife Lan, forged in the chaos of Mao’s Chinese Cultural Revolution. With hundreds of portraits and remixes of iconic artworks, can Jiawei complete his epic Tower of Babel masterpiece while facing the considerable risks of revealing it to the world?

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