Merry Christmas, Yiwu
- Directed by: Mladen Kovačević
- Released: 2026 (educational)
- Year of Production: 2020
Communist ideals have long lost their value in Yiwu, a city with 600 Christmas factories, in which Christmas as we know it is produced for the entire world. With rising wages, the workers in Christmas factories can now afford newest iPhones, but they still live in crowded dormitories. All migrants in their own country, nostalgic for some place far away, some miss their families left in hometowns, other miss their friends and lovers from the factories when they go home for holidays. Young generation is already tired of long factory hours, chemical fumes and glitter particles, and they do not care for their parents' wishes to get educated. Stuck in between Chinese tradition and the newly discovered Chinese dream, they want their own businesses, to be rich, to be independent, to be in love.
Rotterdam International Film Festival, The Netherlands
Göteborg Film Festival, Sweden
Tempo Documentary Festival, Sweden
Hot Docs, Toronto, Canada
Biografilm Festival, Italy
Sarajevo Film Festival – Won Heart of Sarajevo for the Best Documentary Film, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Mladen KOVAČEVIĆ (1979, Serbia) studied fiction-film directing in London and Cape Town, and has dedicated himself to documentaries in recent years. His poeticism is rooted in the simplicity of realism; his films explore various styles with idiosyncratic dramatic structures. He has won numerous awards, including The Heart of Sarajevo for Best Documentary at Sarajevo Film Festival for Merry Christmas, Yiwu(2020) and the Best Documentary Award at Ibiza Cine Fest for 4 Years in 10 Minutes (2018). His films have screened at Visions du Réel, IDFA, Hot Docs, CPH:DOX and FIDMarseille.
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