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Zhang Juzheng

Zhang Juzheng, a play written by Xiong Zhaozheng, winner of the Mao Dun Literature Prize, and co-directed by Feng Yuanzheng and Yan Rui, adopts an alternating dual narrative of reality and unreality to depict the inner journey of Zhang Juzheng, grand secretary of the Ming Dynasty, during his reforms. From the mortal world to the wider realm, from the rivers and lakes to the imperial court, dramatic conflict runs throughout the work, which, amid echoes of history, inquires into the fate and aspirations of the reformer.On stage, three dragon thrones of different sizes and eight red pillars form a freehand stage design. The cinematic theatre production uses distinctive narrative shots to capture the cast’s delicate and precise performances, fully amplifying the stage audio-visual effects and creating a beauty of oriental artistic conception.

Zhang Juzheng

NR 2026
i.Mirror by China Tracy

Cao Fei recorded her experiences within the online social platform Second Life. The result is a wistful, surreal vision of an alternative reality sprung from the pop culture fantasies and hyper-consumerism of contemporary urban China, while also trying to transcend its real-life limitations. It can be seen as an answer to the challenge posed by River Elegy: how to envision a new Chinese destiny founded on principles of individuality, creativity, discovery, and freedom. The film also reflects the contemporary condition of the virtual supplanting our experience of the real.

i.Mirror by China Tracy

6.0 2007
Wild Grass

Since the start of the 1990s, a period during which the Chinese government criticised the Western media for biased reporting, Chinese orphanages have strictly controlled access by the media. Because of the difficulty of gaining entrance, it is extremely difficult to know what the situation has been like there for many years. Accompanied by a mother living close to the Qingdao centre, it was thus nevertheless possible for me to film this delicate subject in privileged conditions. It was there that, in 1995, I discovered for the first time dozens of children abandoned by their parents. Over the following 10 years, I came back to visit them every year, and I became their friend. As I listened to them relating their dreams of glory, I filmed their evolution over a decade...

Wild Grass

NR 2009
Beijing Taxi

BEIJING TAXI is a timely, uncensored and richly cinematic portrait of China’s ancient capital as it undergoes a profound transformation. The film takes an intimate and compelling look at the lives of three cab drivers as they confront modern issues and changing values against the backdrop of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. Through their daily struggles infused with humor and quiet determination, BEIJING TAXI reveals the complexity and contradictions of China’s shifting paradigm.

Beijing Taxi

10.0 2011
County Magistrate, County Magistrate

County Magistrate, County Magistrate depicts a collective migration unfolding in an indeterminate time and place. Men, women, and children from a village move through mountains as the sky gradually grows dark, walking resolutely into the distance until they arrive at a new settlement. The abandoned courtyards they leave behind still bear traces of daily life: a steaming kettle, unfinished bowls of food, an old television flickering with static, and worn-out pieces of furniture. The camera then slowly pans to an outdoor movie screen showing After Armistice, a black-and-white film released in 1962. In the film, a man draws a business card from his pocket and introduces himself as Xianghe’s newly appointed county magistrate. At this moment, the story slips into another layer of fictional time and space.

County Magistrate, County Magistrate

NR 2025
Can't Feel Nothing

A man lies in bed illuminated by the blue-white light of his mobile phone. He doom scrolls past cute pets, outraged opinion pieces and haunting images from the world's hotspots – and he feels absolutely nothing. With curiousity and humour, director David Borenstein travels the world to investigate how bad things really are. Who is pulling the strings when the internet makes us angry, sad, horny or just plain indifferent? And is there any way back? From the American internet troll, a burnt-out superstar in the Asian influencer industry, a cynical fake-news factory in Eastern Europe, Russian state propagandists and an online dominatrix, this is an alarming contemporary diagnosis, with a bold attempt to also look at solutions.

Can't Feel Nothing

8.0 2024
Evoé: Portrait of an Anthropophage

A film that mixes labyrinthine recent testimonies and historical images of the career of the tropicalista director, actor and playwright Zé Celso, of Teatro Oficina, one of the greatest personalities of the Brazilian arts of all time. The documentary acquired its main verb in four trips to key points in the trajectory of Zé: Bahia badlands, Cururipe Beach in Alagoas (where Bishop Sardinha was devoured), Epidaurus and Athens in Greece and his apartment in São Paulo.

Evoé: Portrait of an Anthropophage

2.3 2011
The Peony Pavilion

A young aristocrat is seduced by a young man who appeared to her in a dream one spring afternoon. Captive of this impossible love, the young girl is dying of melancholy. But the constancy of her love is stronger than death; she wins the pity of the judge of the underworld, manages to find her lover and come back to life. The opera "The Peony Pavilion" was composed in 1598 by the poet Tang Xianzu (1550-1617), one of the greatest playwrights of the Ming period. Of all the forms of Chinese opera that have followed one another since the 12th century, the kunqu is the one that best preserves the image of a classical art highly appreciated in educated circles for its musical, literary and gestural refinement.

The Peony Pavilion

NR 1988
Dong

Jia Zhangke travels with painter Liu Xiaodong from China to Thailand as they as they meet everyday workers in the throes of social turmoil. Liu Xiaodong is well-known for his monumental canvases, particularly those inspired by China's Three Gorges Dam project. Jia Zhangke visits Liu on the banks of Fengjie, a city about to be swallowed up by the Yangtze River. The area is in the process of being "de-constructed" by armies of shirtless male workers who form the subject of Liu's paintings. Liu and Jia next travel to Bangkok, where Liu paints Thai sex workers languishing in brothels. The two sets of paintings are united in their subjects' shared sense of malaise in the face of the dehumanizing labor afforded them.

Dong

5.6 2006
Sweet Osmanthus Flowering Late

"Sweet Osmanthus Flowering Late" is a feature-length ethnographic film that envisions social rejuvenation and collective convalescence in the aftermath of the pandemic. Filmed in Wuhan, the film follows the everyday lives of three middle-class households. It postulates the existence of a mass dreaming phenomenon that facilitated fatigued Chinese inhabitants to rejuvenate themselves following the secluded episode of lived experience and to coexist with the enduring imprints of "the event" on their social lives.

Sweet Osmanthus Flowering Late

NR 2024
Disturbing the Peace

"Disturbing the Peace" is a documentary of an incident during Tan Zuoren's trial on August 12, 2009. Tan Zuoren was charged with inciting subversion of state power. Chengdu police detained witnessed during the trial of the civil rights advocate, which is an obstruction of justice and violence. Tan Zuoren was charged as a result of his research and questioning regarding the 5.12 Wenchuan students' casualties and the corruption resulting poor building construction. Tan Zuoren was sentenced five years to prison.

Disturbing the Peace

6.5 2009
Balance

Hoh XIl is the main habitat of the national first-class protected Tibetan antelope. Tibetan antelopes have been widely hunted by poachers because they can bring high profits. In just ten years, the total number of Tibetan antelopes decreased by two-thirds. On January 18, 1994, Sonan Dajie, deputy secretary of the Zhiduo County Party Committee of Qinghai, was shot to death during the arrest of 18 poachers. A year later, his brother-in-law and deputy secretary of the county party committee, Zaba Dorje, established the "Western Wild Yak Team," an armed, anti-poaching organization whose main purpose is to protect wild animals. Its effectiveness has been touted by environmental protection organizations at home and abroad, as well as relevant central ministries and commissions. However, just as Dhabal Dorje was preparing to "do a good job," in his own words, he was suddenly shot in the head at home and died.

Balance

8.7 2000