About the film

This documentary is about a Chinese painter, LIU Xiao-Dong, who is one of China's greatest and best-known artists. He left hometown at age 17 to study art and became famous painter internationally. Thirty years later, he decided to paint his hometown. Go home is very important for an artist. His hometown changed a lot, how does he capture the moment infused with his childhood memories and current existence?

In this documentary, his creative process is chronicled, from the spark of an Idea to an empty canvass to the finished artwork. Using the same subjects for his newest collections that he used 30 years earlier to get into a Beijing art school, Liu embarks on a creative journey that balances his own personality with honesty. The subjects? His family members. “Hometown Boy” is a lyrical, almost painterly addition to the canon of films about art.

“Every one of Liu's paintings is a part of the whole, a frozen moment infused with his childhood memories and current existence. He confronts the objects in his painting from an honest, independent and daring point of view. In these moments, he comes out of himself and his personality and expression penetrate the surface of the painting. The film Hometown Boy hopes to record this process from Liu Xiaodong's perspective as well as understand his art practice from this intimate distance”.

Wybrane nagrody i festiwale /Selected festivals and awards: 2011 - FF Taipei, Złoty Koń dla Najlepszego Filmu Dokumentalnego/ Taipei FF, Golden Horse for Best Documentary, 2012 - 9. PLANETE+ DOC FF, premiera europejska/ European premiere