LOGLINE

China 2008, a young woman’s devotion to new technology is challenged by the unexpected arrival of love. A love story set against the backdrop of the microchip industry, the invisible engine of life in the 21st century.

‘Truly atypical, SUCCESS IN CIRCUIT LIES constitutes visual artist Redmond Entwistle’s foray into narrative cinema. Set in the mid-2000’s, this project places itself on two levels of understanding: as a poetic romance between a young female Chinese graduate and a middle-aged American man, but also as a portrait of the microchip industry that witnesses both the demise of the American dream and China’s ascent.’

– Torino Film Lab

SYNOPSIS

China 2008, a young woman’s devotion to new technology is challenged by the unexpected arrival of love.

ARTISTIC STATEMENT

Success in Circuit Lies is a feature length narrative film based on my research and experience of the growing microchip industry in the west of China, and the once pioneering, but now shrinking sites of microchip production in the Hudson River Valley. The film is at once an oblique love story and a study of microchip production, an industry which is critical to every facet of life in the 21st century.

Story Synopsis

Cai has broken away from an unhappy childhood in a farming village. She always believed that her future was in the US studying and working in technology, but she cannot afford to go.

An electronics entrepreneur, Huang, sets his sights on starting a microchip factory. Following the financial crash, he buys a failing plant from the US and moves it to China. However, when the equipment arrives, Huang finds himself out of his depth and he employs Cai to oversee the installation. In exchange she will get a scholarship and finally fulfil her dream.

A technician’s arrival at the plant disrupts Cai’s plans. Having lost his job in the US, Gary wants a fresh start in China. Despite their difference in age and ambition, Cai and Gary fall in love. As Huang’s personal problems threaten to overwhelm his venture, he cancels Cai’s scholarship in a bid to keep hold of her. With her dreams in pieces, Cai begins to question what technology really offers her.

Director's Statement

My family immigrated to the US and caught the wave of education into science and the middle class. In some way, their history reflects the arc of the US as it prospered in the 20th century. I see a similar process in China today, and was inspired to tell the story of the US’s faltering pre-eminence and China’s ascent.

I began thinking about microchip production - the invisible engine of our lives - and technology’s place in this shifting balance of global power. I visited closing factories in the Hudson River Valley and the new sites of production in western China. Out of this I have written a story of people trying to avoid their unresolved pasts through technology’s promise of a future of freedom and profit.

Gary has become disillusioned with the technology industry, whilst Cai sees it as her future. She is determined to erase her history, just like deleting data, and start again. However, in using technology as an escape she risks emotional isolation. In the end, even the controlled precision of the silicon microchip seen under a microscope is like a jagged and dangerous terrain. To love and to survive Gary and Cai must accept the same perilous landscape within themselves.

About the Writer / Director

Redmond Entwistle is a writer and director working between the UK and the US. Originally from London, he moved to the US to study film and fine art at the California Institute of the Arts and then the Whitney Independent Study Program. During his early career in New York, he focused on short and medium-length films and performances that were shown at film festivals and galleries internationally, including a retrospective at MIT List. He won Best Film at Images Festival, Toronto for his film ‘Paterson - Lódz’ and was in competition at International Film Festival Rotterdam with ‘Monuments’, which the festival called, ‘A brainy, beautifully imagined film with an unexpectedly dry humour to boot.’

Redmond is now committed to making feature films for a wide cinema audience. In preparation for this project Redmond travelled and taught film in China with support from the Arts Council of England.

In addition to Success in Circuit, Redmond is developing a second feature Decoys, for which he received support from Hessen Film Fund, Centre Pompidou (Hors Pistes) and the Frankfurter Kunstverein.

KEY CREW

Redmond Entwistle - Writer / Director

Redmond Entwistle (UK/US) has made seven short and medium length artists films that have shown at festivals and museums internationally. His last film Walk-Through had its festival premiere at the Vienna International Film Festival, and was the focus of three solo exhibitions around the UK in 2012. His previous film Monuments premiered in Rotterdam Film Festival’s 2010 Tigers Shorts Competition and went onto over 20 festival and museum screenings and exhibitions. His medium length film Paterson - Lodz won Best International Film at Images Festival in 2008 and was named one of the top ten experimental films of 2008 by the Village Voice. In 2013 spotlights on his work were presented at Hors Pistes (Centre Pompidou), BAFICI (Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival) and Centre d’Art Contemporaine Genève/HEAD, and shown as part of a survey of UK artists film since 2008 at Tate Britain in January 2014. He was nominated for the 2014 Jarman Award and in January 2015 the MIT List Visual Art Center presented a solo exhibition of his films. In 2015-16 he participated in Film London’s New Approaches program mentoring artist-filmmakers to develop feature films for cinema release. His films are distributed by Lux Artists Film and Video. He is currently preparing to shoot his first feature Lockvögel (Decoys).

Alex Thiele - Producer

Alex Thiele (UK) is founder and producer at London-based 65 Wilding Films. Her recent production - award-winning comedy The Book of Gabrielle was released theatrically by Peccadillo Pictures in 2017. Other producing credits include Break My Fall (2011) by BAFTA-nominee Kanchi Wichmann selling internationally to over 20 territories, and most recently, the documentary A Deal With The Universe, which will premiere at BFI Flare 2018. Alex currently has film projects in development with backing from BFI and Finnish Film Foundation, including Hannah Patterson’s Claude, winner of 2017 Athena List, and Redmond Entwistle’s Success in Circuit selected for 2018 Torino Film Lab. Alex is an alumna of the EAVE European Producers Workshop. In 2014, she was selected for Guiding Lights, the UK industry’s flagship mentoring scheme.

Meng Xie - Producer

Meng Xie (CH) was curator of film at Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art (UCCA) Beijing from 2012-16. He then went on to work as a producer with BlackFin Productions (www.blackfin.cc), producers of Kaili Blues (Winner Locarno Golden Leopard 2016), Free and Easy (2016), Mr Zhang Believes (2014). In 2017 he set up Rediance, an international sales company for Chinese Independent films. Their current slate includes The Widowed Witch (Winner Best Film IFFR 2018) and An Elephant Sitting Still (acclaimed as a masterpiece at Berlinale 2018).

Shouwang Zhang - Composer

Shouwang Zhang (CH) inspired by NY experimental rock and minimalist music of the 1970’s and 80’s, founded the seminal Beijing indie-rock band Carsick Cars. The band toured with Sonic Youth in Europe in 2007. Alongside releasing three critically acclaimed albums with Carsick Cars, he has released two LP's with his experimental band White +. He was also commissioned to write an orchestral work by Bang on A Can that premiered in NY in 2016.