Beijing Taxi (working title) – Feature length documentary work in progress

The ancient capital city of Beijing races towards preparations for the 2008 Olympic Games. It is estimated that more than 80% of the world’s construction cranes are now located in China. They constitute a visually inescapable part of the urban landscape. Beijingers witness the demolitions of historical architectural districts uniquely characteristic of Beijing, as well as most Communist style housing complexes built before the 1970s paving the way for luxury high rise apartments and commercial buildings. People’s general quality of life has drastically improved due to economic development, but there is also an increasing sense of isolation and loss of community. In a city known for the warmness and congeniality of its people, the young, the educated, and the entrepreneurial strive for their share of the opportunities, while the older and the less ambitious grapple to survive as the ground shakes and crumbles beneathe them.

Beijing Taxi focuses inward to the point of view of three Beijing taxi drivers and follow their lives over a period of two years from November 2006 to August 2008. Serving as the first point of contact for visiting foreigners, unique in their notoriously gregarious characters, and geographically close to the Central Government, Beijing taxi drivers chat openly and reveal a city and its people demolished and reconstructed by multiple core factors, from transitioning from a Communist to Capitalist economy, globalization, to the Olympics. The film follows three characters (they were casted from phase I of production in November 2006): Bai Jiwen, a 55 year old veteran driver who lives in one of the old flat-house style dwellings in the city center with his wife and 20 year old son; Wei Caixia, a 33 year old woman married with a 6 year old daughter living in the outer borough of Beijing; and Zhou Yi, a 37 year old male married with an 8 year old daughter living in a military residential zone in the city. Through their perspectives and their lives a transitional city with its opportunities and social ramnifications come alive. Beijing Taxi uses the taxicab is a point of departure as the story slowly unravels and we focus on the characters as they undergo major changes in their lives and struggle to keep up with the unnatural speed of growth. The context of the Olympics and the constantly changing China is omnipresent in the background.