I Wish I Knew

I Wish I Knew is an expansive survey of Shanghai’s history, as told by its citizens, filmmakers, and artists, including notable film figures Hou Hsiao-hsien (Flowers of Shanghai), Wei Wei (Spring in a Small Town), and Wang Tung (Red Persimmon). Jia Zhangke’s use of archival footage in tandem with these testimonies further illuminates how civil war, government crackdowns, and exile dictated stories of love, family, and career. Many of Jia’s interviewees are, in fact, exiles, anticommunists, criminals, intellectuals, and other black sheep who lend this history a particularly flavorful, unlicensed air.