Private Project

Bespoke ART

When bespoke becomes a label for optimized service, the human race is no longer content with customizing things; it begins to customize humans. One by one, the perfect service, the perfect children, the intricate global fertility chains, and the women therein fade out from the documentary footage, while director Jingjing steps into the spotlight from behind the camera. She becomes a Thai surrogate in captivity, but also a surrogacy agent who achieved upward social mobility; she turns into a selfless and hypocritical American surrogate mother – a product of technology born through surrogacy herself; she even tries to play an elite black lesbian at the very top of the feminist chain of contempt, only to collapse in on herself.

  • Jingjing Chen
    Director
  • MM
    Writer
  • Jingjing Chen
    Writer
  • Feiyu Li
    Producer
  • Jingjing Chen
    Producer
  • Jingjing Chen
    Key Cast
    "Numa, Rosa, Chyna, Jessica, Tanisha, Jingjing"
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Feature
  • Genres:
    drama, docu-drama
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 12 minutes 36 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    June 12, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    100,000 CNY
  • Country of Origin:
    China
  • Country of Filming:
    China
  • Language:
    English, Mandarin Chinese
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital，DJI ronin 4D
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
Director Biography - Jingjing Chen

Chen Jingjing is a graduate of Peking University and has appeared in multiple international theatre festivals, including the Wuzhen Theatre Festival and the Beijing Fringe Festival. For the past six years, she has tracked and documented the lives of surrogate families across three continents, reflecting on her own blurring identity as she went. Bespoke Art was born out of Jingjing’s exploration of different perspectives, and her attempt to create a more tempered space for critical public debate, all the while protecting her subjects. In this ‘role-playing’ drama film, women across the surrogacy industry are embodied through the director herself in a fictional documentary. A film written, directed, and starred by a single creator may seem an ultimate manifestation of agency; yet perhaps what you see is simply a woman pulled along helplessly by the world around her.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

This is a fictional story that came to life from documentaries, a highly dramatic film. We abandoned traditional narratives and keep reminding the audience that everything here is role play. The surrogacy industry has formed a worldwide network thanks to globalization. Meanwhile, the public discourse is plagued with judgment and moral kidnapping. Everything is brutally labelled, classified, and stereotyped – women are no exception. To me Bespoke Art is a tempered work, with no fervent rally or fierce criticism. But at the same time it is keen. We are battling the binary system of ‘right or wrong’ so often taken for granted. I hope my work can shake people up a bit, so that when they consider topics like surrogacy, procreation, and femininity after leaving the theatre, they will think twice.