Visitors to Beijing get so easily caught up in its flash and modernity –
towering skyscrapers, Bugatti dealerships on every corner – that they
forget they’re actually in an ancient city. It’s not hard to understand
why, of course: most of the old capital is gone, either cleared for new
building or “improved” to look more like a theme park than a living,
breathing metropolis. The documentary “New Beijing: Reinventing a City,”
which screens Sunday at New York’s Asia Society, explores the tensions
of preservation and development in 21st-century Beijing through the eyes
of the activists and architects working to shape the city in the new
millennium. Directed by the Australian filmmaker Georgia Wallace-Crabbe,
“New Beijing” offers a view of the capital as it was and could be – for
better and for worse.
The trailer for “New Beijing: Reinventing a City.”
Sunday, Oct. 2 at 3 p.m.
Visit asiasociety.org for more details.
