Set in a quasi-ghost town that once thrived with oil in China's arid northwest, Yumen is a haunting, fragmented tale of hungry souls, restless youth, a wandering artist and a lonely woman, all searching for human connection among the town's crumbling landscape. One part "ruin porn", one part "ghost story”, and entirely shot on 16mm, the film brings together performance art, narrative gesture, and social realism not only to play with convention and defy genre, but also to pay homage to a disappearing life-world and a fading medium.
2013-02-12
7
The frustrated painter decided to burn his failed paintings. Unexpectedly, when the paintings burned down, they turned into paper cranes and returned to his memory. As memories shuttled, the painter wanted to recover the waste paper again, but it was too late.
If It’s Not Now, Then When? mostly takes place in an apartment inhabited by three members of a family (though never at the same time): mother Pearlly Chua (from Tsai Ming-liang’s I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone), daughter Tan Bee Hung and young son Kenny Gan. Their father seems recently to have died. The mother leaves early and returns late, out on long walks in the park with a lover whom the daughter and her best friend try to spy on. The daughter pecks away at a computer at work and has a desultory affair with her married boss, which he carries on between his business and family phone calls. And the son breaks into cars and “recycles” the electronics he finds.
Seedlings protection rite (also called the parade of big rice dumplings) is a spring agricultural festival of Hakka people in Western Fujian, China. People worship the God of Grains (Shennong) in the rite. People collect thousands of fresh bamboo leaves, sew them together and make a pair of big dumplings filled with 120 kilograms of rice each. They also make tens of thousands of finger-sized rice dumplings for believers to take home. On the 15th day of the 2nd lunar month, villagers carry out the statues of the God of grains and big dumplings. Followed by flowers cars, eight sheds carry children chosen from every clan name in the village who are dressed up as ancient heroes, as people parade around the village. After the rite, villagers believe that farmland is awakened and that disasters are averted. A new agricultural cycle begins.
In the sound of rice huller, the rice falls to the jar; and in the booming sound of thunder, the rain drops falldown on the ground. Witha shovel on shoulder, we're farming under the sky. -- This is a children's folk rhymes used to be very popular among the Hakka people lived in the westernpart of Fujian Province, China. While farming is not an easy work, rice hulling is an even more laborious work. Rice-huller is a tool used by the peasants in southern China to hull the rice for thousands of years in theirfarming history. This documentary films the making of probably the last rice-huller ever made by mankind.
Nicknamed "Mayor of the Night Market", Ninth Uncle has been a temporary worker managing the night market for over 30 years. Despite of his success in the night market, his family life appears quite the opposite. Almost 70 years old now, he continues his life in the night market. As the night falls every evening, Zhong Shan Road and its hundred years of history are now facing reconstruction and the night market full of yummy food venders [sic] is soon to be gone. Ninth Uncle helplessly watches the empire he worked his whole life for slowly fall apart.
Don't forget to have poetry when making a living. This is romance. Even if you live in a sheepfold, you have a holy smile like a baby. This is romance. Listening to folk songs from the workers' hometown at the construction site in Shenzhen is touching. Once the song stops, you become eager for it. This singing series is also called "Sharing Hometown" and “Lingering Songs". You see, the eyes of the singing workers are shining, because we are all close to the Buddha.
In rural China, the job of enforcing the Communist Party's one-child policy falls on government bureaucrats tasked with imposing fines, birth control, and forced sterilizations. Xu Huijing documents this process in his native village of Ma, following the tenacious efforts of the local birth control chief during an increased sterilization quota period, revealing the absurd and tragic local consequences of high-level government policy. (Chicago International Film Festival)
A silent film by Vietnamese director Truong Minh Quy in collaboration with Belgian director Nicolas Graux, was shot on the set of a film by Graux. We Sit in Silence at the Memorial Table is inspired by Educational Objectives, a poem written by Aleksey Garipov and translated to English by Nicolas Graux.
Four college students from Shandong University of Technology planned to make a documentary about the folk culture of ghosts and spirits. They went to a village in Heze City, Shandong Province, and made some interviews with local villagers. During the interviews, they heard a lot of local weird tales. The shooting of the documentary went smoothly, and that night, they chose to stay in the village. At this point, strange things, however, began to happen...
Yulin, once the poorest region of Northwest China, has rapidly become "China's Kuwait" for the mining industry launched in recent years. People rush into the coal mine and other coal-related businesses, hoping to get rich overnight. They are possessed by anxiety and restlessness. However, it seems they have no other choices…
Different veterans, different memories of the Anti-Japanese War, and different lives. The oral narratives of 7 veterans show you the pictures of the Anti-Japanese War in that year, and take you to understand the current situation of the veterans of the Anti-Japanese War in Guangdong.
Class 172 is a key class for their excellent students of an ordinary secondary school in Hunan province, from which the kids’ main goal is to upgrade into one of the best province-level high school – No.1 high school of the county. In the recent few years, the school’s enrollment rate to high school was not quite satisfying, and this year, the newly promoted class in charge teacher – Mr. Xiang, who’s only graduated a few years ago, became their brightest hope to teach the students and raise the enrollment rate for school.
In this talk, Li Hongqi reviewed his transition from fine art to cinema, and his aesthetic and philosophical exploration from his early 'So Much Rice' to recent 'The The'. Dir. Li Hongqi also shared his strong anxiety of his existence(born with melancholia), his thought on cinema art (actually, I don't think there's any movie worth making), his epistemology, his religious view, his consideration on contemporary cinema, and what he learned about living in seclusion.
Li is over 70 years old, he sits in front of his window in the afternoon every day and smokes the cigarette to pass the time. The sound of water drops in the kitchen, two pigeons are roosting on roof of the opposite building, and the sunshine comes into the room, which make Li feel alive. His emotions usually could be fluctuated with the plot of the TV programmes, because he even could find out his own fitful memories from it. One was is the whole family, another one also is the whole family. During worshipping of the ancestors, he listened to his mother's arrangements and felt sincere concern from his brother. However, happy time was so short. After he returned to his rental place, the only thing that he can do is to look at the dream which was outlined in the New Year's Gala, and which gradually away from his dream. Everything just was the same as the past in this new year, he was still feel so lonely.
I just watch the news of war in a distant country on my mobile. My fingers go back day by day to the day the war broke out and pose to see comments posted on the Facebook News Feed that I follow. Outside, I have friends who participated in anti-war rallies.
The core of the work is to explore and experiment the viewing mechanism of the image. Try to recreate the third space with the characteristic of "halo" through images. The halo points to ambiguity and a sense of distance, while the third space is the difference space constructed by reality and consciousness. The work uses fragments of daily life and poetic non-linear narrative as two narrative means, interspersing and advancing the narrative, which corresponds to the two viewing states of the audience, namely reverie and trance, and hopes to connect the audience with the image in the form of flowing water.
The C-list TV actor Jonnie Zhang decides to change career as an estate agent. While preparing for the interview, he hires a cleaner to tidy up his long non-visited mansion. A cleaner receives a task to a vacant house, and she decides to stay over night realizing that the bus service has been suspended. Out of every clue hidden in the house, she fantasizes its whole family and secrets, along with her own previous life she comes across.
Due to his history of theft in the past, Lin Kuan is falsely accused of stealing from his high school classmate. To prove his innocence, Lin enlists his friend Xiao Bing to make a plan that will clear his name. However, heir seemingly perfect plan takes a turn that pushes Lin to a dangerous edge.
The film is director Gao Zipeng’s first fiction film which takes three years to complete. It premieres on March 27, 2001 in UCCA and stars the poet A Jian, Xiao Zhao and the writer Gou Zi. The film is based on a true crime of disappearance. It creates an atmosphere of what Ma Zhiyuan, a celebrated poet and playwright of Yuan Dynasty, portrays in his famous poem “Autumn Thoughts”: Over old trees wreathed with rotten vines fly evening crows/ Under a small bridge near a cottage a stream flows/ On ancient road in the west wind a lean horse goes/ Westward declines the sun/ Far, far from home is the heartbroken one.
A small rural township called Red White was seriously devastated by the May 12th Earthquake in China 2008. A 62-year-old Taoist survived even though his temple was largely torn by the disaster. This documentary tells the story of how the Taoist practices the widely believed Chinese traditional religion and the local people’s daily life during the township’s post-quake reconstruction.
If It’s Not Now, Then When? mostly takes place in an apartment inhabited by three members of a family (though never at the same time): mother Pearlly Chua (from Tsai Ming-liang’s I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone), daughter Tan Bee Hung and young son Kenny Gan. Their father seems recently to have died. The mother leaves early and returns late, out on long walks in the park with a lover whom the daughter and her best friend try to spy on. The daughter pecks away at a computer at work and has a desultory affair with her married boss, which he carries on between his business and family phone calls. And the son breaks into cars and “recycles” the electronics he finds.
The execution was scheduled and the last meal consumed. The coolness of the poisons entering the blood system slowed the heart rate and sent him on the way to Judgement. He had paid for his crime with years on Death Row waiting for this moment and now he would pay for them again as the judgment continued..
This is a story about a city guy Nikolai, who will have to go instead of his friend on a rural business trip. A series of funny events, meetings and the beauty of the Yakut village encourage Nikolai to make an important decision in his life…
Two souls lost in a world of modernisation find each other in a moment's need for clarity and appreciation.
As the Overfiend slumbers, the mad emperor Caesar rises to power, enslaving a new race of demon beasts. Into this cruel existence is born the Lord of Chaos, the Overfiend's nemesis. As the blood-thirsty beasts capture the tyrant's daughter in a brutal coup, the Overfiend must awaken to an apocalyptic battle of the Gods.
Patients in a psychiatric clinic are placed in a special home in the city, where they have access to the outside world. Another change to their previous situation is the fact that two female patients come to live with them.
Three prominent members of society, a judge, a police official and a district collector are kidnapped in broad daylight by a man who calls himself 'Citizen'. As CBI Officer Sarojini (Nagma) follows his trail she finds clues to a shocking mystery, of a village called Attipatthi which simply disappeared off the map of India, and to which each of these men is connected
'Bicycle' is a 90 minute documentary, asking the question 'why is cycling and the bicycle back in fashion?' The film, which is directed by BAFTA winning director and keen cyclist Michael B. Clifford, tells the story of cycling in the land that invented the modern bicycle, its birth, decline and re-birth from Victorian origins to today. The film weaves bicycle design, sport and transport through the retelling of some iconic stories and features interviews with notable contributors Sir Dave Brailsford, Gary Fisher, Chris Boardman, Ned Boulting, Sir Chris Hoy, Tracy Moseley, Mike Burrows and many more, plus great archive, animation and music. 'Bicycle' is a humorous, lyrical and warm reflection on the bicycle and cycling within its place in the British national psyche.
Eight men, eight stories about the morning after party...
Elvira hosts this humorous look at movie monsters and facts about the real animals on which they're based. Included: clips from films; and interviews with scientists and various showbiz types, including directors John Carpenter and John Landis, and actors Jeff Goldblum and Roy Scheider.
Headstrong textile student Irina tries to overcome her problems by accepting a summer job offer from an isolated and offbeat village of Kyrsyä. As Irina begins to get a grip of herself, the harmless and offbeat hillbillies begin to reveal their true nature.
Тридцатилетний холостяк-астроном встречает девушку своей мечты, влюбляется в нее, и та отвечает ему взаимностью. Но соединить судьбы влюбленным не так-то просто: дело в том, что наш герой — сын властной мамы, желающей единолично опекать своего отпрыска до старости. Единственное решение проблемы — переключить внимание капризной родительницы на другой объект. Например… на нового мужа! Но найти достойного кандидата в супруги привередливой молодящейся женщине бальзаковского возраста — задачка не из легких. Герой фильма буквально сбивается с ног в поисках приличного жениха. В процессе он знакомится с множеством самых разных людей, преодолевает невероятные препятствия, попадает в курьезные и анекдотические ситуации. В испытаниях характер молодого человека закаляется, а став сильнее, он наконец освобождается от материнского диктата.
It is the 30th millennium. Humanity is caught in the midst of a fratricidal war between those of the meta-human Space Marines who are loyal to the Emperor, and those who no longer are. The once noble warriors of the XII and XVII legions are cutting a bloody path throughout the realm of Ultramar, committing boundless atrocities out of sheer spite and hatred for their cousins belonging to the XIII legion. In this episode we gain a glimpse of the aftermath of the battle on planet Sathus, and the living nightmare taking place on a starship manned by traitorous legionaries, as they bide their time on the approach to planet Calth.
You are following the lives of a family who have chosen not to take the microchip implant but instead live a life with no home and consistently on the run from the one world government known as the F.A.T.H.E.R.
Fight Club Rush 10 is a Fight Club Rush event on Nov 20, 2021 at Vasteras Arena, Vasteras, Sweden.
In the yard of an Iranian village school stands in the shade of a tree a large stoneware jar from which all the pupils drink fresh water. On an unfortunate day, the jar starts leaking. The schoolmaster tries hard to get a new one but in vain. The only solution is to have it fixed...