UK Premiere of the director’s cut version, the screening will be preceded by an in-person introduction from Akiyama Tamako (tbc) and a recorded video from the director Wu Wenguang.

EAST2046 Festival and Chinese Cinema Project jointly present Wu Wenguang's ground-breaking documentary, Bumming in Beijing, widely regarded as one of the founding works of Chinese independent cinema. The screening explores how the filmmakers’ pioneering aesthetics and themes of urban wandering speak to contemporary experiences of cultural displacement and artistic community-building, in an Asian diasporic context.

Following five young artists drifting through Beijing in the late 1980s, the film captures a generation caught between tradition and modernity, artistic ambition and economic reality. Wu Wenguang's intimate camera reveals the precarious lives of cultural workers navigating China's rapid social changes, creating a raw portrait of displacement and creative survival in a transforming metropolis.

Cast: Artist collective including musicians, painters, and writers from Beijing's underground cultural scene