Dream Empire
Shot over seven years, the film is a personal story as well as an on-the-ground chronicle of the Chinese Dream. Yana, a young, rural girl who recently arrived in Chongqing, was drawn by the glamour and easy riches of China's historic real estate boom. She chose to pursue an unusual, but promising business career; she opened a “foreigner rental agency” to help real estate companies market their new developments — the infamous ghost towns. When the inevitable happens and the real estate bubble pops, Yana is forced to sell her company and reasses everything she believed in.
David Borenstein is an American director currently based in Copenhagen. He has directed films for ARTE, Al Jazeera English, Horisonts, NYTimes, and more are underway. He was a cinematographer and producer for the Sundance-funded film, The Hand that Feeds, which won the audience award at the Full Frame Film Festival. A China scholar, he received PhD training in Anthropology at the City University of New York. He began developing China Dreamland while on a Fulbright scholarship in China to study urbanization and real estate speculation. David speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese.