Countries: The Netherlands, Hong Kong, France, Greece

Year: 2021

Genre: documentary

Director: Sean Wang

Duration: 99 minutes

Blocks of white marble from a Greek quarry are shipped to China, where sculptors turn them into Hellenistic-style statues and columns. The leftover grit is processed into fridge magnets and other souvenirs, which are returned to Europe and sold to Chinese tourists.

With a light touch and wry humor, the Chinese-Dutch documentary A Marble Travelogue portrays a chain that runs from capital to manufacturing, wholesale, retail, and consumer. The film makes complex connections and highlights the European aspirations of the Chinese middle class in an unobtrusive but visually seductive style.