Director - James Bradley

Producer - GRAEME ISAAC

Welcome To Babel

In examining the content of Jiawei’s new landmark work and following his own search for meaning, Welcome To Babel illustrates the intimate link between many of the greatest art works and artists of the 20th Century and the aspirations of a movement that too often failed to live up to its own high ideals.
Jiawei’s Tower of Babel painting celebrates the lofty vision of the Communist movement that captivated not only politicians but creative artists – painters, novelists, philosophers, playwrights, musicians and film makers – across the world then contrasts that inspiring vision with the suffering and repression that was so often the reality.

In telling the story of Jiawei’s own journey and that of his wife Lan, from rural China through the tumult of the Cultural Revolution, the film reveals how personal biography inspires great art.