* MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA (74 minutes, feature documentary)

Carnivalesque Films

www.mardigrasmadeinchina.com

Filmmaker Contact

David Redmon

203 417 3136

david [at] mardigrasmadeinchina.com

Production Notes

Producer, Director, Editor, and Cinematographer: David Redmon

Executive Producers: Deborah and Dale Smith

Producer: Ashley Sabin

Ashley [at] mardigrasmadeinchina.com
 
Music: Matthew Dougherty

Tagline

Beads, Breasts, and Business: A Story of "Globalization Gone Wild!"

Synopsis

The award winning documentary, Mardi Gras: Made in China, swiftly follows the path of Mardi Gras beads from the naked streets of New Orleans during Carnival, where revelers party 24/7, to the disciplined factories in Fuzhou, China, where teenage laborers live and thread beads 24/7. Told with humor and curiosity, Mardi Gras: Made in China provides a global connection by introducing workers and revelers to each other through a disposable commodity: Mardi Gras beads.

* Winner of 18 domestic (U.S.) and International awards; Nominated for Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival

Long Description

Mardi Gras: Made in China follows the "bead trail" from the factory in China to Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras, poignantly exposing the inequities of globalization. First-time director David Redmon cleverly illuminates the clash of cultures by juxtaposing American excess and consumer ignorance against the harsh life of the Chinese factory worker.

The film confronts both cultural and economic globalism by humanizing the commodity chain from China to the United States. Redmon follows the stories of four teenage women workers in the largest Mardi Gras bead factory in the world, providing insights into their economic realities, self-sacrifice, and dreams of a better life, and the severe discipline imposed by living and working in a factory compound.

Interweaving factory life with Mardi Gras festivities, the film opens the blind eye of consumerism by visually introducing workers and festival-goers to each other. A dialogue results when bead-wearing partiers are shown images of the teenage Chinese workers and asked if they know the origin of their beads, while the factory girls view pictures of Americans exchanging beads, soliciting more beads, and decadently celebrating. The conversation reveals the glaring truth about the real benefactors of the Chinese workers' hard labor and exposes the extreme contrast between women's lives and liberty in both cultures.

Filmmaker Statement

In 2002, David Redmon decided to make Mardi Gras: Made in China (61 minutes) after reading articles about China’s rapid transformation into a capitalist, free market economy. Redmon wanted to follow one object from China to the United States in order to visually personalize globalization and illustrate how the commodity chain is connected to different people along the alienated and seemingly disconnected route. Out of curiosity and seduction, Redmon chose Mardi Gras beads as the object to analyze "from the factory to the festival."

Redmon followed his bead-trail of curiosity to the rural region of Fuzhou, China where the bead factory is located in a tax-free Special Economic Zone. After staying with the workers and documenting their everyday life inside a factory compound for two months, government officials in China requested that Redmon immediately leave the factory. Redmon left China and continued his bead-journey by following the bead trail to New Orleans during Carnival. Redmon’s purpose was to invite others to be part of a constructive debate about globalization by showing how the beads are transported, consumed, disposed, and recycled during their global journey.

Biographies

David Redmon studied visual sociology at the State University of New York MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA is his first documentary. He is currently completing ALVAR STREET: A NEIGHBORHOOD IN POST-KATRINA NEW ORLEANS and INTIMIDAD with producer Ashley Sabin.

Ashley Sabin graduated from the Pratt Institute in 2005 with a degree in Art History. She is currently co-directing two documentaries (see above) with David Redmon.

Deborah and Dale Smith met David Redmon on an elevator in Springfield, Illinois at the Route 66 Film Festival. After purchasing (for $20) and watching a work-in-progress of MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA, three days later the Smiths donated $5,000 to complete the film.

Matthew Dougherty, a philosophy major at the New School, extracted noises from the factory in China to compose an original soundtrack for MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA.

Mardi Gras: Made in China is David Redmon’s first feature documentary. David grew up in rural Mansfield, Texas. David has over an hour of bonus bead-footage from Baghdad, Iraq; Miami, Florida; Cancun, Mexico; and New York City, New York which he hopes to include as “extras” in the release of the DVD.

David Redmon decided to make Mardi Gras: Made in China (72 minutes) after reading articles about China’s rapid transformation into a free market economy. Redmon wanted to follow one object from China to the United States in order to visually personalize globalization and illustrate how the commodity chain is connected to different people along the alienated and seemingly disconnected route. Out of curiosity and seduction, Redmon chose Mardi Gras beads as the object to analyze "from the factory to the festival."

Redmon followed his bead-trail of curiosity to the rural region of Fuzhou, China where the bead factory is located in a tax-free Special Economic Zone. After staying with the workers and documenting their everyday life inside a factory compound for two months, government officials in China requested that Redmon immediately leave the factory. Redmon left China and continued his bead-journey to New Orleans during Carnival. Redmon’s purpose was to invite others to be part of a constructive debate about globalization by showing how the beads are transported, consumed, and disposed during their global journey.

Although the film is an invitation to globalization, the significance of the project addresses the vast economic, leisure, and pleasurable inequalities between workers of objects and consumers of objects. It also highlights the differing ways in which gender in the factory and during Carnival is contrasted: young women in China make beads under stringent conditions for young women in the United States to "go wild."

Mardi Gras: Made in China captures the humanity of globalization from the perspectives of the invisible teenage laborers who make it work on a daily basis for consumers in the United States. Redmon's documentary provides insight into the teenage migrants' dreams of seeking a better life, the harsh discipline of living in the factory compound, and the blunt reality of who globalization benefits.

Redmon financed the entire cost of Mardi Gras: Made in China until he met Deborah and Dale Smith, who provided a $5,000 donation to complete the film.