Republic

Director: Jin Jiang

2023 / 107min / DCP

Li Eryang’s freestanding “Republic” sits in the heart of Beijing, a cramped, single, cluttered room decorated with colorful textiles and lights where a population consisting of Li and a rotating cast of his “Cosmic Brotherhood” meet to turn on, tune into psychedelic classics, and shoot the shit. Artist and filmmaker Jin’s charming documentary takes the viewer inside Li’s tiny refuge, therein contemplating the touchingly stubborn persistence of utopian striving in a world that’s anything but utopian.