Better late than never, the full lineup for the third China Onscreen Biennial is now online. Playing November 15–17 free of charge at Landmark’s E Street Cinema, these films were selected by a curatorial committee that included myself and film programmers and scholars in Los Angeles and New York. We met via Skype to winnow down our selections from more than forty new features and documentaries. So you can be assured that these are the cream of the crop.
In addition to their quality, the films were selected to present the broadest possible perspective on filmmaking in China today. On November 15, for instance, you can see Tharlo, the latest film from acclaimed Tibetan director Pema Tseden. It’s followed by Ta’ang, a documentary on the very timely topic of refugees displaced by war, by the pioneering Wang Bing, whose achievements recently merited him inclusion in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
On November 16, director Yang Chao appears in person with Crosscurrent, an utterly unique, exquisitely beautiful film that depicts a journey up the Yangzi River propelled by poetry. This film should especially appeal to Freer|Sackler patrons, as its cinematographer, Mark Lee Ping-bin, was inspired by traditional Chinese landscape painting when creating his gorgeous visuals. The screening will be preceded by a free public reception at 5:30 pm—and it will be followed by the documentary The Road, which, with shocking candor, exposes official corruption on a Chinese highway project.
Women take center stage on November 17, beginning with Fan Bingbing’s award-winning turn in Feng Xiaogang’s I Am Not Madame Bovary, in which she plays a woman doggedly seeking revenge on her cad of an ex-husband. Feng frames his narrative in circles and squares, and tints it with a retro color scheme to give it a look like no other film. The series concludes with a look to the future as we present A Simple Goodbye, the young director Degena Yun’s powerful autobiographical drama about a filmmaker trying to reconcile with her stubborn, dying father.
I hope you’ll join us next week for this free crash course in contemporary filmmaking in China.
