Lengshuijiang is a small city in southwest China. It became known as the Capital of Antimony because it sat on the biggest deposit of antimony in the world. The mine there has been in use for over 120 years and, between the wars, accounted for 80 % of global production. The city also epitomises the deformed model of the modern Chinese economy, a model based on the excessive exploitation of nature and a capitalist neoliberal system. In 2009, the Chinese State Council listed Lengshuijiang among the towns whose natural resources were exhausted.

This film focuses on the production of a programme for Lengshuijiang’s local TV channel, titled News from the Capital of Antimony. It documents the fabrication of official images, a virtuality that becomes actual. Here, the image no longer represents a path towards reality, but a vitiated arrangement of spacetime. It seeks to show a wretched past that can only engender an equally wretched future, without ever pointing to the true problems.