Trap Street

A noirish meditation on new technologies, privacy, and personal relationships, TRAP STREET is set in contemporary Nanjing. Li Quiming is a dreamy young charmer who plays video games and still gets food and cash from his mom. A fledgling surveyor for a digital mapping company, he’s got all the usual 21st century gadgets. His dad, the editor of an ossified Communist Party magazine, wants the money back he lent his son for a business gone bust, leading Quiming to moonlight as an installer of security cameras in public spaces. One day when he’s out surveying, he spies through his viewfinder a pastel-pretty woman disappearing into a side street called Forest Lane. His efforts to track her down lead nowhere, and it seems Forest Lane has disappeared from all digital maps. When Quiming falls for the mysterious lady, he gets pulled into a confusing world of paranoia and suspicion. How can we navigate our future in a world where surveillance is the norm? (In Mandarin with subtitles) —B.B.