Cathedrals

More than two million people could live in the newly-built Chinese city of Kangbashi but so far only a few thousand have moved in. Profit-hungry speculators have bought up all the apartments, thus creating a ghost town of deserted streets lined with austerely rigid buildings. The movie takes a surrealistic story by Michael Ende, transforming it via powerful visuals into a chilling parable about the absurdity of the modern world, where people worship Mammon above all else. Indeed, as long as everyone believes that property values will keep rising, nothing about Kangbashi´s sad fate will ever change. (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival)