Factory or fantasy?

Joan Chen (top left) and Zhao Tao (above) star in Jia Zhangke's (top right) new film 24 City.

It is hard to tell the difference between fact and fiction in 24 City (24 Chengji), the latest project by leading director Jia Zhangke.

The film, which is now showing at cinemas throughout the mainland, was shot at the former site of a vast aeronautics factory in Chengdu, Sichuan province.

Jia interviewed 90 workers after it was demolished to make way for an apartment block and relocated to an outer suburb a 45-minute drive away. His film is interspersed with fake interviews of recognizable actors like Joan Chen (The Last Emperor and Twin Peaks) and Jia's leading lady, Zhao Tao.

This was Jia's first feature film since he became a darling of art-house critics with his haunting romance Still Life (San Xia Hao Ren), which won the Golden Lion at the 2006 Venice Film Festival. He started 24 City the following year after hearing of the 50-year-old factory's demise.

He interviewed the workers himself and it was while he was studying the footage that he found it might be more emotive to incorporate it with a fictional plot.

"It is impossible to include all the interviews, most of which were segments unrelated to each other," he says. "So I added four fictional stories and then threaded them all together."