KU QIAN, Bitter Money, a film by Wang Bing
Presented at Venezia 73, Orizzonti. In a fast growing city of East China, migrants have been arriving and living for a dream of a better … Read more
What’s in the Darkness
Young, female coming-of-age dramas are a rich seam for genre filmmakers, from Carrie to Ginger Snaps. But it’s rare to see such a young female-centric viewpoint in East Asian murder mysteries.
Sea of Clouds
Shot in Taiwan and structured around an interview with the artist Chen Chieh-jen, Sea of Clouds focuses on the public film screenings that took place during Japan’s colonial rule over Taiwan, which were covertly used to hold political gatherings.
Ten Years
Hong Kong in 2025 is the setting for this hot-topic compendium of five short films that offer a speculative approach to the territory’s possible political trajectory.
Life After Life
While gathering wood one day, a man’s son wanders off, returning later to announce that he is the spirit of his mother, the man’s dead wife.
Apprentice
Aiman is a young prison employee whose career has been heading in one direction with a momentum verging on the inevitable.
Chinese cinema and Hollywood merge in “The Great Wall”
In recent years, Hollywood has been eying the Chinese movie audience as China is one of the largest international film markets, and the two worlds … Read more
Michelangelo Antonioni documentary on China: Chung Kuo – 1972
The documentary focuses primarily on the lives of contemporary working-class Chinese people.
A documentary on China, concentrating mainly on the faces of the people, filmed in the areas they were allowed to visit. The 220-minute version consists of three parts. The first part, taken around Beijing, includes a cotton factory, older sections of the city, and a clinic where a Cesarean operation is performed, using acupuncture. The middle part visits the Red Flag canal and a collective farm in Henan, as well as the old city of Suzhou. The final part shows the port and industries of Shanghai and ends with a stage presentation by Chinese acrobats. [Will Gilbert]
According to cinematographer Luciano Tovoli, this documentary was shot mostly handheld with an ‘Eclair NPR’ 16mm camera using available light. In 1972, during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Michelangelo Antonioni was invited by the People’s Republic of China to direct a documentary about New China. The result was a three-and-a-half-hour long film, divided into three parts. Mao disliked it so much that Michelangelo Antonioni was consequently charged with being anti-Chinese as well as counterrevolutionary. The movie was finally shown at Beijing’s Cinema Institute 30 years later.”
MADE IN JAPAN – Three of the most representative films of the 2013 edition are from Japan
Three of the most representative films of the 2013 edition are from Japan: I Have to Buy New Shoes by Eriko Kitagawa, See You Tomorrow, Everyone by Yoshihiro Nakamura and A Story of Yonosuke by Shuichi Okita.
FAR EAST FILM FESTIVAL 15 – UDINE FILM FESTIVAL AWARDS THE GREAT KIM DONG-HO!
UDINE – The gaze focused on the present and the future of Asian film, through 60 titles that draw on the best productions in recent months, and a tribute to the world ambassador of Korean culture: the great Kim Dong-ho! This is the fifteenth – much awaited – edition of the Far East Film Festival. Here is the window that will open up, from April 19 to 27, on the Far East…
Interview: Hou Hsiao Hsien
FLIGHT OF THE RED BALLOON is the first film in a series initiated by the president of Paris’ Musée d’Orsay, Serge Lemoine, and the production, … Read more