Gettin’ Gig Wit It: KimStim is Enceinte with Huang Ji/Ryuji Otsuka’s “Stonewalling”

Real-life partners and filmmakers Huang Ji and Ryuji Otsukahave been riding the autumn film festival wave of Venice (Giornate degli Autori), Toronto’s TIFF and the upcoming NYFF and London BFI fests with Stonewalling and we now learn that the KimStim grabbed the title for what will likely be further film festival before a limited theatrical release. The film links to their previous work and provides a fresh look into the Chinese economy by way of the Generation Z.

In China’s gig economy, bodies are currency. This is certainly the experience of 20-year-old Lynn (Honggui Yao) who is browbeaten by her boyfriend to improve her marketability with English classes, but who takes one-off gigs dressing as a princess at a jewellery store promotion and is tempted by the lucrative possibilities of selling her eggs. But then she discovers that she is pregnant, and her tentative first steps onto the career ladder are abruptly halted as she grapples with the options for her future.