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The “Dramas” of Zhang Yimou
Join us for the month of June, as we celebrate the work of internationally acclaimed “fifth generation” Chinese filmmaker, Zhang Yimou, with free screenings of four of his dramatic works. All films are in Chinese with English subtitles. Seating is limited, pre-registration required.
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Raise the Red Lantern Follows the tale of an educated woman who becomes the newest wife of a feudal nobleman in 1920s China. Nearly isolated in his spacious estate, she develops relationships with several of the other wives, all vying for the attentions of their husband. Tuesday, June 4 free |
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To Live A family is put to the ultimate test, as they are forced to endure tumultuous events in China; their personal fortunes move from wealthy landownership to peasantry. Through it all they manage to survive, in this epic story set during the 1940s–1970s. Tuesday, June 11 free |
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Happy Times In the hopes of having a wife, a middle-aged laid-off factory worker, decides to marry a pushy divorcée and agrees to pay for an expensive wedding. To the funds for the wedding, he turns a broken-down bus into a meeting spot for couples, naming it the Happy Times Hotel. Tuesday, June 18 free |
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Not One Less In a remote mountain village, the teacher must take a leave of absence, and the only substitute that can be found is a 13 year old girl. She is left with a supply of chalk , 27 students in her charge, and a promise of 10 extra yuan if there’s not one less student when the original teacher returns. Tuesday, June 25 free |
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For further information, please contact , or 212-744-8181 x111
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GHOST TOWN Tuesday, November 30, 2010 GHOST TOWN 6:30 – 9:30PM Zhiziluo is a town barely clinging to life. Tucked away in a rugged corner of Yunnan Province, Lisu and Nu minority villagers squat in the abandoned halls of this remote former Community county seat. Divided into three parts, this epic documentary takes an intimate look at its varied cast of characters, bringing audiences face to face with people left behind by China’s new economy. A father-son duo of elderly preachers argue over the future of their village church. Two young lovers face a break-up over harsh financial realities. A twelve year-old boy, abandoned by his family, scavenges the hillside to feed himself. “Directed with scrupulous attention to detail by Zhao Dayong” (Manohla Dargis, The New York Times), Ghost Town is “one of the most important films to have emerged from the booming (but still underexplored) field of Chinese independent documentaries” (Dennis Lim, Moving Image Source). ADMISSION: $8 for non-members and $5 for members. Reservations are on a first-come, first-served basis. For further information, please contact sinomatheque@chinainstitute.org, or 212-744-8181 x111 |
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CONFUCIUS Saturday, April 3, 2010 CONFUCIUS 4/3 ~ 5:00 – 7:00PM; 7:00 – 9:00PM* In collaboration with Hong Kong Film Archive and Hula Post Production, China Institute is proud to present master director FEI Mu’s film classic Confucius (1940). Recently rediscovered in Hong Kong, the film has been restored by the HKFA and the screening will share with audiences the result of initial preservation work by the archive. China Institute will feature two showings of the film on Saturday, April 3, 2010, at 5:00 pm and 7:00 pm. *The 7:00 pm screening will include a talk given by Dr. Weihong Bao, assistant professor of Chinese Film and Media Culture at Columbia University’s Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. Confucius was directed by Fei Mu (1906–1951), the leading filmmaker of Chinese left-wing cinema movement in the 1930s and 40s. Urgently produced for patriotic propaganda during the Sino-Japanese war, Confucius was premiered in Shanghai and later shown across China from the end of 1940 through 1941. It was thought lost following its brief re-run in 1948 until the Hong Kong Film Archive received a film negative of Confucius donated by anonymous collector in 2001. With the help of the experts from the renowned film restoration and conservation workshop L‘Immagine Ritrovata of Italy and extensive research by local scholars, HKFA released the film during the Hong Kong International Film Festival in 2009. The screening of Confucius at China Institute will include Chinese and English subtitles and commentary based on several years of extensive research conducted by scholars commissioned by the HKFA. Guest lecturer Dr. Weihong Bao will introduce the April 3rd 7:00 pm screening and will answer questions after the film. Dr. Bao, assistant professor of Chinese film and media culture at Columbia University received her PhD from the University of Chicago (2006). Trained in both film studies and East Asian literature and culture, she focuses on early Chinese cinema, with broad interests in Chinese cinema, drama, and visual culture from late Qing to the contemporary period as well as international silent cinema, film theory, and film history. The screening of Confucius is made possible by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. ADMISSION: $20 for non-members and $15 for members. Reservations are on a first-come, first-served basis. For further information, please contact sinomatheque@chinainstitute.org, or 212-744-8181 x106  
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CRIME AND PUNISHMENT Friday, February 5, 2010 CRIME AND PUNISHMENT An open discussion with director, ZHAO Liang, will follow the screening. Winner of Best Documentary at France’s Festival des Trois Continents in 2007, CRIME AND PUNISHMENT follows the daily lives of young Chinese guards based at a police station at the border of North Korea and China. Documenting daily life in a rural region not yet affected by China’s economic boom, the film depicts how young inexperienced police officers face local disputes ranging from common theft to illegal foresting to erroneous death reports. The film also captures the competition that develops between the young recruits as the end of the year approaches and veteran officers are due to retire. Zhao Liang’s CRIME AND PUNISHMENT has won several important international awards: Best Director Award at the 10th One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, Czech Republic; the Silver Lady Harimaguada Award at the 9th Annual Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival, Spain; the Montgolfiere d’or Award at the Festival of Three Continents, Nantes, France. Zhao belongs to a generation of Chinese filmmakers that attempt to unite a classical documentary language that speaks to the impulses of today’s Chinese popular culture. “Zhao Liang has endurance, an endurance that he shares with many of those who appear in his documentary films. The individual stories of the underprivileged are what interest him, and he makes this a starting point for his exploration of the general constitution of Chinese society. Zhao captures those sides of life that are ignored by official politics and, in so doing, acts as a chronicler of everyday life. Futility, running idle, stubbornness, and stamina are motifs shared by all of his films, while the dramatic consequences of the rapid economic and structural transformation in China constitute the continuous backdrop to his work.” (Quoted from the catalogue of the 2008 Berlin Biennial) ADMISSION: $10 for non-members and $5 for members. Reservations are on a first-come, first-served basis. For further information, please contact sinomatheque@chinainstitute.org, or 212-744-8181 x137 |
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Taking Father Home (Bei Ya Zi de Nan Hai) Friday, January 29, 2010 TAKING FATHER HOME Seventeen-year-old Xu Yun (Xu Yun) leaves the Chinese countryside to search for his father, and finds instead a nightmare vision of survival in the modern city. Traveling with no money and only two ducks as collateral, Xu Yun walks into an urban jungle of gangsters and thieves, throwing his life into danger. He earns the sympathy and support of streetwise hustler Scar (Wang Jie) and a cynical policeman (Liu Xiaopei). Both help Xu Yun find clues to the whereabouts of his father, but their efforts are dashed by a 24-hour flood warning forcing the sudden evacuation of the entire city. Will Xu Yun find his father in time, and if so, will he bring his father back home? Winner of several international festival awards, TAKING FATHER HOME is the debut feature of radical independent filmmaker Ying Liang, who borrowed equipment and recruited friends and family to realize his fierce vision of an emotionally scarred society. The film presents “a side of China that is rarely, if ever, seen on film.” (Andrew Grant, Filmbrain) “A triumph of vision and talent.” – Jay Weissberg, Variety “Filmmaking at its best.” – Film Intelligence ADMISSION: $10 for non-members and $5 for members. The film is FULLY reserved. Thank you for your interest in our film series. Reservations are on a first-come, first-served basis. For further information, please contact sinomatheque@chinainstitute.org, or 212-744-8181 x137 |
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OCTOBER 2009
SUPEr, GIRLS!
Saturday, October 24, 2009
SUPER, GIRLS!
(73 min., JIAN Yi, 2007, Mandarin with English subtitles),
4:30 – 6:00PMAn open discussion with director, JIAN Yi, will follow the screening.
" ‘Mainstream’ life is fairly underrepresented in independent Chinese documentaries as filmmakers tend to focus more on the society’s underprivileged groups. Yet ‘mainstream’ life in fast changing societies like China’s can be as different as Red Guards in 1960s, poets in 1980s, businessmen in 1990s and the ‘Super-girls’ in 2000s. What are the values of the family’s-only-child generation? How do they release their tremendous extra energy and money and embrace a globalized culture? China should not be just the playground for banks and corporations. China’s new generation of independent filmmakers look into the present-day mainstream culture and document and scrutinize this crazy and confusing time of the nation’s history.”
—Jian Yi, from the Director’s Statement
ADMISSION: $8 for non-members and $5 for members.
Popcorn and refreshments will be served.
Seating is LIMITED. Reservations are on a first-come, first-served basis.For further information, please contact sinomatheque@chinainstitute.org, or 212-744-8181 x150
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MAY 2009
oxhide Friday, May 29, 2009
OXHIDE
(110 min., LIU Jiayin, 2004), 6:30 – 8:30PM“Through the lens, I saw our life. I couldn’t describe it otherwise. My home is only fifty square meters. But the screen ratio is Cinemascope. It is my family through my eyes: narrow, depressive, dim and warm. No other people appear in the film except the three of us. The whole movie took me forty days to finish. During those days, once I came back from school, and my mom was back from the factory, and my dad was back from the shop, we would shoot the movie. Most of the scenes were shot during the middle of the night. This story continues in real life.”
—Liu Jiayin, from the Director’s Statement
ADMISSION: $5 for non-members and $3 for members.
Free popcorn and refreshments will be served.
Seating is LIMITED. Reservations are on a first-come, first-served basis.
For further information, please contact sinomatheque@chinainstitute.org, or 212-744-8181 x150
shanghai, "the hollywood of asia," after liberation Discussion, Screening and Book-signing
Friday, May 8, 2009WOMAN BASKETBALL TEAM MEMBER NO. 5
(84 min., XIE Jin, 1957), 6:30 – 8:30PMQin Yi stars in Woman Basketball Team Member No. 5, a film made in Shanghai just after the Communist take-over of the city in 1949. Mao’s goal was that everyone in the new society should work as a team.
The actress makes the transition from the capitalist world to become one of the favorite movie stars of the masses. She plays the mother of a basketball player whose coach is the woman’s long lost lover. Her daughter plays the same team position as her mother did 18 years before when the coach was fired because he refused to lose a championship game.
Richard J. Meyer teaches film at Seattle University and is an authority on Chinese films made in Shanghai. He is the author of Ruan Ling-yu: The Goddess of Shanghai and, most recently, Jin Yan: The Rudolph Valentino of Shanghai.
An open discussion with Richard J. Meyer will follow the screening.
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APRIL 2009
The Other Half, with director YING Liang
Saturday, April 25, 2009THE OTHER HALF
(111 min., YING Liang, 2006), 6:15 – 9:00PMXiaofen (Zeng Xiaofei) spends all day listening to everything that’s wrong with China, opening her eyes to the chaos that threatens her own life.
Working as a secretary for a legal office, Xiaofen records clients detailing the sordid aspects of their lives: divorce cases, medical malpractice suits, financial corruption and old-fashioned personal revenge. Xiaofen starts to question her own relationship with her boyfriend (Deng Gang), fresh out of prison and looking to get into trouble again with his gambling habit. While Xiaofen deals with the overwhelming social malaise surrounding her, rumors spread of a disaster at the local chemical plant, threatening to poison the entire city.
Indie director Ying Liang follows up his celebrated debut Taking Father Home with a portrait of the social and environmental issues in contemporary China. "A vivid angle into ordinary life in China" (David Bordwell, Film Art: An Introduction), Ying Liang’s filmmaking examines multiple facets of society with a deceptively direct filmmaking style "that has few parallels in modern cinema." (Richard Brody, The New Yorker)
An open discussion with director, YING Liang, will follow the screening.
SOLD OUT
The Blood of Yingzhou District
Friday, April 24, 2009THE BLOOD OF YINGZHOU DISTRICT
(39 min., Ruby YANG, 2006), 6:30 – 7:15PMNo-one knows how old Gao Jun is. Four? Older? Younger? Whatever his biological age, he has none of the verbal babble, or ready tears, of a child his age. The film tracks this orphan for a year as his closest surviving kin – his uncles – weigh what to do with him. The older uncle’s dilemma: if he allows his children to play with Gao Jun, who is HIV-positive, they will be ostracized by terrified neighbors. The younger uncle’s dilemma: so long as Gao Jun remains in the house, the young man may not be able to find a wife.
Gao Jun is one of just a handful of children we come to know in this film: Nan Nan, who after her parents’ death, was shunned by relatives and left to live without adult care with “Little Flower,” her teenage sister; and the Huang siblings, who vividly describe their ostracism at school. The suffering of these orphans is all the more devastating for being largely unnecessary, the function of misinformation about the nature of the disease.
Yet the film is more than a mere catalogue of woes. Nan Nan reveals her impish humor and joy; the Huang children resolve to become educated and outstrip those who shun them; and Gao Jun, in the closing scenes, demonstrates his ferocious determination to live.
The Blood of Yingzhou District received the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short in 2007.
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FEBRUARY 2009
Noble Tombs at Mawangdui
Friday, February 27, 2009THE DIVA MUMMY
In conjunction with China Institute Gallery’s current exhibition The Noble Tombs of Mawangdui, Sinomathèque invites viewers to explore the world of The Diva Mummy and ponder one of forensic archaeology’s greatest mysteries: how several bodies buried in southern China over 2,000 years ago are the best preserved ancient human remains ever found?*Please note: the contents of the documentary include an autopsy of the mummy that may be disturbing to some viewers.
FREE ADMISSION
SOLD OUT
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JANUARY 2009
From Underground to Independent:
New Cinema from China
Friday, January 30, 2009SAN YUAN LI
(45 min, OU Ning, CAO Fei, 2003), 6:30 – 7:15 PMEquipped with video cameras, twelve artists present a highly-stylized portrait of San Yuan Li, a traditional village besieged by China’s urban sprawl. Reminiscent of Dziga Vertov’s THE MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA (Russia, 1929) and Godfrey Reggio’s KOYAANISQATSI (USA,1982), China’s rapid modernization is brilliantly presented, with fast-edited scenes choreographed to music. Commissioned by the Venice Biennale, SAN YUAN LI explores the modern paradox of China’s economic growth and social marginalization.
DIGITAL UNDERGROUND IN THE PRC
(18 min: 6 episodes, 3 min. each, Rachel Tejada, 2008), 7:20 – 7:40 PMOn a mission to acquire films and seek out the best and brightest of the Chinese independent film scene, Karin Chien and Suyin So from dGenerate Films visited post-Olympics China in September 2008. Traveling from Shanghai to Nanjing to Beijing with the cameras rolling, they found China’s other film community. Join them as they visit the largest underground film festival in China, explore the spirit of independence in Beijing, tour film compounds, attend a government-approved film event, and discuss the future of Chinese cinema. Karin Chien and dGenerate will lead an open discussion.
(Videos courtesy of Chunnel.tv and Berlin Cameron United/WPP)ADMISSION:
$5 for non-members
$3 for membersSOLD OUT
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A Double Feature on Friday, December 12, 2008 THE RED BALLOON Winner of the Academy award for Best Original Screenplay and the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival , The Red Balloon remains a timeless classic. As a metaphor of childhood and youthful perceptions, this movie presents a friendship between a boy (played by the director’s son) and a seemingly sentient balloon. With virtually no dialogue, The Red Balloon delivers the pure poetic bliss of seeing life with innocent eyes. The Red Balloon is the ultimate holiday movie to share with people you care. Hou Hsiao-hsien, the leading auteur of New Taiwan Cinema, uses the 1956 French original as an inspiration, and incorporates many of the universal themes of his previous works. Hou captures the spirit of childhood in the mundane and repetitive details of everyday life, which eventually transcend into poetry through memory. The emphasis drifts from the young boy to his single mother (Juliette Binoche), who is so caught up in the details of modern life that she often misses its ephemeral beauty. The audience witnesses her gradual realization and recovery, which comes not only from her actions, but also from the storytelling form which Hou employs. This film promises to be an elevating experience for all. ADMISSION: |
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Oxhide II (Niu Pi II) Tuesday, December 6, 2011 OXHIDE II (NIU PI II) A continuation of the director’s 2004 work, Oxhide, the second installment in this series Oxhide II, follows the lives of her father, mother, and herself in their small Beijing apartment. The family’s dinner table, which serves a multitude of functions (including the father’s leather-making station), is the main subject of the film as it is converted into a surface for dumpling making. Liu uses up-close, tight shots to focus the viewer’s attention on the main action taking place whatever it may be, and making the often seemingly ordinary parts of life the central theme in her style of filmmaking. The director invites the viewer into her home to see that, “daily routines are interesting in themselves… every day, every moment is equal in its importance…” (Liu Jiayin interviewed by Christen Cornell, Artspace, University of Sydney). ADMISSION: Tuesday, December 6 ~ 6:30 – 8:45 PM |
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Sunflower Tuesday, October 11, 2011 SUNFLOWER In conjunction with China Institute’s exhibition, Blooming in the Shadows: Unofficial Chinese Art, 1974–1985, Sinomathèque is proud to present Sunflower, the moving tale of a family after the father’s return from a re-education camp during the Cultural Revolution. The father, an artist, is no longer able to work in his previous profession due to his injured hands and instead he places all of his hopes on cultivating the artistic talents of his son. While the son eventually follows in his father’s footsteps becoming an artist himself, he carries a great deal of resentment towards him, creating a tense relationship between the two. The film broken into three parts, depicts the interaction between the family members, as the son transitions into adulthood. ADMISSION: FREE Seating is limited, pre-registration required. Reservations are on a first-come, first-served basis. |
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Special Preview and Discussion with Director Thursday, April 28, 2011 AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY Screening will include a 20-minute segment to be aired on Frontline produced by the director, a trailer of Never Sorry, and a preview of a completed scene selection from the film. Q and A to follow a discussion with the director, Alison Klayman. |
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Winter Vacation (Han Jia) Tuesday, December 18, 2012 Winter Vacation (Han Jia) “It’s the last day of winter vacation in Inner Mongolia. Four aimless adolescents enjoy their last hours of freedom drifting between the barren spaces of their small town. They make surreal visits to homes of family and friends, including an unhappy little boy who dreams of becoming an orphan to escape the tyranny of his family. A prevailing absurdity casts over their lives as they endure petty instances of bullying while arguing over the purpose of school, teenage love, and life in general. Eventually they return to the routines of school life, only to witness an epic meltdown from their teacher in the midst of a lesson.” –dGenerate Films Runtime: 91 minutes $5 member / $8 non-member Seating is limited, pre-registration required. Reservations are on a first-come, first-served basis. |
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New York City Premiere—The Beginning Friday, November 30, 2012 The Beginning The film, produced by NeochaEDGE, features in-depth profiles of 10 leading-edge Chinese animators/animation studios together with a sampling of work spanning a wide variety of styles and themes. It provides an authentic voice to one of the most promising sectors of the Chinese creative industry. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to be transported into the worlds of China’s top emerging animation talent. Featured animators/animation studios include: Ray Lei (Beijing), Sun Haipeng (Shenzhen), Liu Jian (Nanjing), Mao Qichao (Magic Animation Studio, Chengdu), Pi San (Beijing), Anytime (aka: ANI7IME) Animation Studio (Zhang Chunli, Pu Junhan, Li Weikun, Su Jingxin: Guangzhou), Seen Studio (Zhang Naowen, Aspirin, Zeng Xun: Beijing), Song Siqi (Henan)/Wang Qing (Suzhou), Li Dongzhen (Beijing), and Beijing Film Academy student animation group (Sun Yiran, Wang Xingchen, Chen Xi, Zhang Yi, and Zhang Xiadian). Film is in Mandarin with English subtitles. Runtime: 100 minutes $5 member / $8 non-member Seating is limited, pre-registration required. Reservations are on a first-come, first-served basis. |
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A New York Times Critics’ Pick The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of my Father CIA Spymaster William Colby Friday, November 16, 2012 The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of my Father CIA Spymaster William Colby The Man Nobody Knew uncovers the hidden life of legendary CIA spymaster William Colby. The consummate American soldier-spy, Colby took on the government’s dirtiest assignments without question – until the day he defied presidential orders and revealed to Congress the CIA’s “family jewels” – their deepest, darkest secrets. Told by his son Carl Colby and featuring a who’s who of the intelligence community as well as top journalists and writers, Colby’s story unmasks the lies, myths, truths, sacrifices and casualties of a covert spy. The distinguished cast includes James R. Schlesinger (former Secretary of Defense and Energy and Director of CIA), Gen. Brent Scowcroft (former National Security Adviser to President Gerald Ford), James Lilley (former U.S. Ambassador to China and Korea), former Senator Bob Kerry, writers and journalists Tim Weiner and Bob Woodward, and many more. Screening will end with a discussion between China Institute Resident Scholar Dr. Agnes Hsu and the film’s director, Carl Colby. Runtime: 104 minutes Seating is limited, pre-registration required. Reservations are on a first-come, first-served basis. |
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Today Jingdezhen Tuesday, October 2, 2012 Today Jingdezhen Ground-breaking documentary about contemporary Chinese porcelain in Jingdezhen. Directed by Lili Fang, guest co-curator of China Institute’s current exhibition, New “China”: Porcelain Art from Jingdezhen, 1910 – 2012, and Director of the Art Anthropology Research Center of the Chinese National Academy of Arts (Beijing). Chinese with English subtitles. Runtime: 26 minutes No RSVP needed, but seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. |
 Image Credit: Zhu Legeng, Heavenly Horse, 2008, yinqing “shadow blue” porcelain, 11.4 x 76.2 x 21.6 cm, collection of James J. Chin, image courtesy of Maggie Nimkin Photography. |
SUMMER OF WONG KAR WAI
Join us for the month of June as we celebrate the work of famed Hong Kong filmmaker, Wong Kar Wai, with free screenings of four of his films. All films are in Cantonese with English subtitles.
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Days of Being Wild Set in 1960’s Hong Kong and later the Philippines, the film tells the story of a young, reckless, womanizer who learns that the woman who raised him is in fact not his birth mother. After learning the truth, he decides to venture off to the Philippines in search of his birth mother and himself. Tuesday, June 26, 2012 This screening is FULLY reserved. Thank you for your interest in our film series. |
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In the Mood for Love A journalist and a secretary, each rent a room in an apartment becoming neighbors. While both are married they are often left alone by their respective spouses. Often seeing each other during their separate visits to a noodle stand at night, they one day begin to speak to each other and come to the conclusion that their spouses are having an affair together. They begin to wonder how the affair may have begun, and together they re-enact what they think may have happened. Tuesday, June 19, 2012 This screening is FULLY reserved. Thank you for your interest in our film series. |
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Fallen Angels Often considered a sequel to Chungking Express, the film consists of two plotlines: the first follows the life of a professional hit man and a female partner he rarely sees or knows; the second tells the story of a mute young man who breaks into restaurants and stores at night and sells items to passersby. Tuesday, June 12, 2012 This screening is FULLY reserved. Thank you for your interest in our film series. |
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Chungking Express Comprised of two different stories told in sequence, each is about a lovesick Hong Kong policeman mulling over his relationship with a woman. The film depicts a paradox in that even though the characters live in densely-packed Hong Kong, they are still lonely and live in their own inner worlds. Tuesday, June 5, 2012 This screening is FULLY reserved. Thank you for your interest in our film series. |
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Fortune Teller (Suan Ming) Tuesday, February 21, 2012 Fortune Teller (Suan Ming) “The colorful life of a countryside fortune teller provides a candid and deeply revelatory look at people living on the fringes of Chinese society. Li Baicheng is a charismatic fortune teller who services a clientele of prostitutes and shadowy figures whose jobs, like his, are commonplace but technically illegal in China. He practices his ancient craft in a village near Beijing while taking care of his deaf…wife Pearl, who he rescued from her family’s mistreatment. Winter brings a police crackdown on both fortune tellers and prostitutes, forcing Li and Pearl into temporary exile, during which they visit their hometowns and confront old family demons. Li’s humble story is punctuated with chapter headings reminiscent of Qing Dynasty popular fiction. In Fortune Teller, Xu Tong continues his work documenting China’s underclass, whose lives have gone largely unnoticed during the country’s boom years. Xu spent a year filming nearly every detail of Li’s daily existence and the ancient spiritual practices he administers. Fortune Teller is ‘an exhaustive case history on the marginalization of the poor and disabled under Chinese capitalism’ (Ronnie Scheib, Variety) and a ‘complete immersion into their deceptively simple world in the countryside of northern China’ (Ada Tseng, Asia Pacific Arts).” –dGenerate Films Runtime: 129 minutes SOLD OUT Seating is limited, pre-registration required. Reservations are on a first-come, first-served basis. |
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Screening & Director’s Talk One Child (2013) Friday, May 10, 2013 One Child May 12, 2013 will mark the 5th anniversary of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, China’s deadliest disaster in three decades. The earthquake killed 90,000 people, including thousands of children. Due to the one child policy in China, for the majority of families in Beichuan, the city most severely hit by the earthquake, losing one child means losing their only child. While following three families’ different paths to move past their loss and long for reconstructing their lives, One Child depicts individual lives through the intimate yet objective camera to capture fundamental social and cultural elements underpinning the lives of ordinary people in China. A native from Beichuan, Sichuan Province, Zijian Mu is a documentary filmmaker and journalist currently based in New York City. His work has appeared on CNN, NYC-TV and Hot Docs International Documentary Festival. He holds an M.A. in News and Documentary from New York University. This is a special program for all the families impacted by the earthquake in Ya’an, Sichuan on April 20, 2013. Screening and discussion will follow a short reception. Film is in Chinese with English Subtitles. Runtime: 46 minutes Friday, May 10 ~ 6:30 – 8 PM Seating is limited, pre-registration required. Reservations are on a first-come, first-served basis. |
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The Wedding Banquet (1993) Tuesday, April 16, 2013 The Wedding Banquet Simon and Wei-Tung are a gay couple living together in New York City. To keep Wei-Tung’s parents, from constantly insisting that their son marry and in the dark about his sexual orientation, Simon suggests a marriage of convenience between Wei-Tung and Wei-Wei, an immigrant in need of a green card. After Wei-Tung’s parents travel from Taiwan to America for a lack-luster wedding, an old friend of the family decides to throw an elaborate banquet. Film is in English and Mandarin with English subtitles. *Held in conjunction with the Center for Public Scholarship’s 29th Social Research conference, Food and Immigrant Life: The Role of Food in Forced Migration, Migrant Labor, and Recreating Home. FREE Seating is limited, pre-registration required. Reservations are on a first-come, first-served basis. |
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Screening & Discussion Tuesday, February 12, 2013 Routes: Sin-ying Ho Routes is a 12-episode TV documentary series on the spiritual odyssey of 12 well-established Chinese American visual artists, including Sin-ying Ho. In Ho’s episode, the artist shares with the audience her unique sacred path to fulfilling her dream as an artist. The film also reveals her artistic inspirations, and how art changed not only her life style, but also her values. It also explores the many challenges and importance of being an artist, especially a Chinese artist in the United States. Sin-ying Ho is Associate Professor, Art Department, Queens College, City University of New York. Her artwork has been exhibited around the world, including the China Institute’s gallery exhibition, New China: Porcelain Art from Jingdezhen, 1910 – 2012, held in September 21, 2012 – February 17, 2013. Fanny Lawren is Producer at JL Global Entertainment — a small production studio committed to local Chinese TV programs. She initiated the xIN-ec project, Routes as part of it, to promote Chinese American artists and entrepreneurs. Film is in Chinese with English subtitles. $5 per ticket Seating is limited, pre-registration required. Reservations are on a first-come, first-served basis. |
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Screening & Director’s Talk Tuesday, January 22, 2013 1428 “Du Haibin’s award-winning documentary of the earthquake that devastated China’s Sichuan province in 2008 explores how victims, citizens, and government respond to a national tragedy. The Great Sichuan Earthquake took place at 14:28 on May 12, 2008, causing 70,000 deaths and 375,000 casualties. Days later, Du Haibin visited Sichuan to capture the devastation as well as the recovery effort. Survivors were reduced to salvaging destroyed pig farms in the mountains, selling scrap metal for pennies, and pillaging homes. Seven months later, as the nation celebrated Chinese New Year, Du returned to see how life had changed in the stricken villages.” – dGenerate Films Du Haibin was born in Baoji City in Shanxi Province in China, and studied painting since childhood. In 1993 he studied Painting and Photography at the Beijing Central Academy of Arts and in 1996 he entered Beijing Film Academy’s Photography department. Du began his documentary filmmaking and creative photography work in 1998. He has made numerous feature documentaries and two fiction films. Maya E. Rudoph is a writer and filmmaker based in New York City and Beijing. Focusing on Chinese independent film and music, she has contributed writing and visual media to dGenerate Films, Asia Society’s China File, and Pangbianr. Film is in Mandarin and Sichuan dialect with English subtitles. Runtime: 117 minutes $10 member / $15 non-member Seating is limited, pre-registration required. Reservations are on a first-come, first-served basis. |
 Photo Courtesy of Icarus Films |
