Trailer
Chinese-Australian artist Jiawei Shen has an ambitious plan: to create a monumental 130-square-meter painting chronicling the tumultuous history of communism. His wife, Lan Wang, also an artist, considers it an impossible challenge. Yet her unwavering support proves crucial to Jiawei’s almost obsessive mission. The film delves not only into the decade Jiawei spends studying the Chinese Cultural Revolution but also offers a portrait of his bond with Lan, forged during that chaotic era. Through hundreds of portraits and reinterpretations of iconic works, can Jiawei complete his Tower of Babel and dare to present it to the world ?
Director’s statement:
Ever since Jiawei first told me in April 2012 about his ambitious and slightly crazy plan to paint a monumental Tower of Babel that tells the history of world Communism, I’ve been fascinated by this project. We started filming with Jiawei and family in December of that year and have since become entwined in their lives. I had previously visited China numerous times with my wife Cathy Li (RIP), and we had filmed there with artist Zhou Xiaoping for my film Ochre and Ink (2011). Later in 2015 we received time critical funding to shoot in Beijing with Jiawei and family at the Beijing Art Biennale and other significant locations. The story of Jiawei & Lan’s lives, from growing up during the Cultural Revolution in Mao’s China, their unlikely relationship, and their migration to Australia in the late 1980s, is representative of many Chinese-Australians, but particularly engaging due to their great artistic talents and illustrious reputations. Through their own personal stories and Jiawei’s Tower of Babel, we can experience the dramatic and often traumatic world of 20th Century Communism, from the inside. From visions of Socialist Utopia through extraordinary adventures and profound comradeship, to misery in the frozen Gulag, we get a window into the lives of many millions of people. While the subject matter is serious, Jiawei and Lan tell their stories with a lot of humour, expressing the absurdity of life in Revolutionary China, where so little made sense to the people themselves who had to live through times of constant tumultuous change. There is also a lot of surreal humour in Jiawei’s Tower of Babel, as famous personalities, artworks, love stories and battles jostle for space on the walls of his massive studio, hidden in the sleepy NSW coastal town of Bundeena. Welcome To Babel is a rare opportunity to experience art and history in a film that incorporates drama and entertainment through multifaceted story-telling with great production values, lensed by Peter Coleman, with brilliant editing by Karen Johnson and a magnificent music score by Caitlin Yeo.
- James Bradley
In the presence of the film crew on March 15th in Montreal.
Director’s statement:
Ever since Jiawei first told me in April 2012 about his ambitious and slightly crazy plan to paint a monumental Tower of Babel that tells the history of world Communism, I’ve been fascinated by this project. We started filming with Jiawei and family in December of that year and have since become entwined in their lives. I had previously visited China numerous times with my wife Cathy Li (RIP), and we had filmed there with artist Zhou Xiaoping for my film Ochre and Ink (2011). Later in 2015 we received time critical funding to shoot in Beijing with Jiawei and family at the Beijing Art Biennale and other significant locations. The story of Jiawei & Lan’s lives, from growing up during the Cultural Revolution in Mao’s China, their unlikely relationship, and their migration to Australia in the late 1980s, is representative of many Chinese-Australians, but particularly engaging due to their great artistic talents and illustrious reputations. Through their own personal stories and Jiawei’s Tower of Babel, we can experience the dramatic and often traumatic world of 20th Century Communism, from the inside. From visions of Socialist Utopia through extraordinary adventures and profound comradeship, to misery in the frozen Gulag, we get a window into the lives of many millions of people. While the subject matter is serious, Jiawei and Lan tell their stories with a lot of humour, expressing the absurdity of life in Revolutionary China, where so little made sense to the people themselves who had to live through times of constant tumultuous change. There is also a lot of surreal humour in Jiawei’s Tower of Babel, as famous personalities, artworks, love stories and battles jostle for space on the walls of his massive studio, hidden in the sleepy NSW coastal town of Bundeena. Welcome To Babel is a rare opportunity to experience art and history in a film that incorporates drama and entertainment through multifaceted story-telling with great production values, lensed by Peter Coleman, with brilliant editing by Karen Johnson and a magnificent music score by Caitlin Yeo.
- James Bradley
In the presence of the film crew on March 15th in Montreal.
Other festival:
Sydney Film Festival, Documentary Australia Award, Australia (2024)
Sydney Film Festival, Documentary Australia Award, Australia (2024)
| Director | James Bradley |
| Script | James Bradley |
| Editing | Karen Johnson |
| Cast | Jiawei Shen, Lan Wang |
| Sound | Liam Egan |
In Partnership with
Present in these collections
Session
• Université Concordia - J.A. de Sève, LB-125, Pavillon J. W. McConnell
Saturday, march 15, 2025, 07:30 p.m. — 09:09 p.m.
Production
James Bradley
James Bradley has worked in film and TV for over 45 years, variously as a writer, producer, director and editor of numerous documentary films and series. He has a reputation for telling powerful stories and a passion for cross-cultural collaboration.
His many editing credits include a slate of award-winning Australian Indigenous projects including the dramatic feature “Radiance” and documentaries “Dhakiyarr vs The King”, “5 Seasons”, “In My Father’s Country”, “art + soul”, and “Mr Patterns”, for which he received the 2005 AFI Editing Award.
He co-directed “50 Years of Silence” which won the 1994 AFI Best Documentary Award and in 2011 produced and directed the award-winning short documentary “Ochre and Ink”, the story of Chinese-Australian artist Zhou Xiaoping’s 23-year collaboration with Aboriginal artists. James also produced the documentaries “Destiny In Alice”, “Blown Away”, and “Under a Pagan Sky” for ABC TV, and has taught film production and editing at several Film Schools and Universities in Sydney.
In 2019 James received the prestigious Stanley Hawes Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Australia Documentary industry. In 2024 James completed his first feature documentary as director, “Welcome To Babel”, which premiered at the 2024 Sydney Film Festival, winning the Documentary Australia Award.
Biographical notes provided by the film production team and edited by Le FIFA’s team
His many editing credits include a slate of award-winning Australian Indigenous projects including the dramatic feature “Radiance” and documentaries “Dhakiyarr vs The King”, “5 Seasons”, “In My Father’s Country”, “art + soul”, and “Mr Patterns”, for which he received the 2005 AFI Editing Award.
He co-directed “50 Years of Silence” which won the 1994 AFI Best Documentary Award and in 2011 produced and directed the award-winning short documentary “Ochre and Ink”, the story of Chinese-Australian artist Zhou Xiaoping’s 23-year collaboration with Aboriginal artists. James also produced the documentaries “Destiny In Alice”, “Blown Away”, and “Under a Pagan Sky” for ABC TV, and has taught film production and editing at several Film Schools and Universities in Sydney.
In 2019 James received the prestigious Stanley Hawes Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Australia Documentary industry. In 2024 James completed his first feature documentary as director, “Welcome To Babel”, which premiered at the 2024 Sydney Film Festival, winning the Documentary Australia Award.
Biographical notes provided by the film production team and edited by Le FIFA’s team
Ochre and Ink (2011)
50 Years Of Silence (1994)
The Same Stream (1981)
50 Years Of Silence (1994)
The Same Stream (1981)
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