Crude Oil (film)

Crude Oil (simplified Chinese: 采油日记; traditional Chinese: 採油日記; pinyin: Cǎi yóu rì jì) is a 2008 Chinese documentary film directed by Wang Bing. Filmed in the Inner Mongolian portion of the Gobi Desert, it follows a group of oil field workers as they go about their daily routine.[1]

Like Wang's debut feature—the nine-hour Tie Xi Qu: West of the Tracks—Crude Oil is notable for extreme length, running to 840 minutes (14 hours). The original plan called for a 70-hour film, but Wang felt compelled to exert additional editorial control and reduced the work to its present length.[2] The director himself came down with severe altitude sickness and left the location three days into the one-week shoot; his crew completed the remainder without him.[3]

Crude Oil premiered (in a video installation setting) at the 2008 International Film Festival Rotterdam, where it received a NETPAC "Special Mention" for "its dispassionate expose of the hardship of human labour which is the basis of economic progress."[4] The project was commissioned by the IFFR, with additional support from the Hubert Bals Fund.[2] It had its Asian premiere at the 2008 Hong Kong International Film Festival.[5] Its North American premiere was at The Los Angeles Film Festival in June 2009, with screenings held in Gallery 6 at the Hammer Museum.[6]