Name: Contact Lens
Start: 2025-09-21T15:00:00-05:00
Location: The Harper Theater

Contact Lens
Dir. Ruiqi Lu | China | 78 min | DCP | Chinese w/ English subtitles | Midwest Premiere
A woman puts in her contact lenses and begins again, same routine, same kitchen, same quiet desperation. But something is different. In her apartment, a film plays on the screen: a Chinese reenactment of Jeanne Dielman, her hair and movements eerily familiar. Is she the observer or the observed?
Contact Lens is a haunting debut that refracts the legacy of Chantal Akerman’s landmark through a distinctly contemporary Chinese lens. Ruiqi Lu's formal daring, depth of field shifts, aspect ratio constrictions, visual layering, mirrors the psychological confines of domestic repetition. But unlike Jeanne Dielman, this isn’t just a story of entrapment. It’s one of recognition, cinematic empathy, and the glimmer of escape.
Winner of Best Director (Tallinn Black Nights, Rebels With a Cause) and Best Film (Fantaspoa), Lu’s film is a quiet triumph of feminist slow cinema, a delicate and deliberate liberation story, shaped by image, memory, and the refusal to remain unseen.