2012 Chinese Visual Festival: Independent Chinese Documentary Day
Event description
The 2nd Chinese Visual Festival runs from 22nd June to 6th July across four central London venues with the theme ‘Run, China, Run’, tying in with the Olympics Games.
Birkbeck will be hosting two sessions on June 30 - a directorial retrospective with Zhou Hao and a screening of films telling the stories of ordinary Beijing residents during the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Session 1 Zhou Hao The Constant Documentarian 2:00-5:40pm
The Chinese Visual Festival will present its first Directorial Retrospective on 30th June, Zhou Hao The Constant Documentarian, with his two most influential films, 'Senior Year' and 'Using' being shown at Birkbeck College Cinema. 'Senior Year' has proved an extremely popular documentary in China, focusing on the lives of students in their last year of high school, and depicting the hardships and pressure both they and their teachers endure. In making 'Using', Zhou Hao followed a real life low level drug dealer called Ah Long for 7 years, their relationship moving far beyond that of documentarian and subject. The powerful film has already attracted the attention of Hong Kong producers, who plan to make it into a feature.
An introduction about Independent Chinese Documentary Movement will be included before the screening starts and a panel discussion after the screenings.
Session 2 Yu Guangyi and others 6:30-8:30pm
This second session of Independent Chinese Documentary Day will showcase two short films and 1 feature length film. 'Beijings Vigilance' (10min) and 'Still Life' (10min) are stories of ordinary Beijing residents during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. 'Bachelor Mountain' (100min) is the latest film from the renowned independent Chinese director Yu Yuangyi. Yu had won several Gold Prizes for his two earlier films 'Timber Gang' and 'The Survival Song'. 'Bachelor Mountain' is the last film of his Hometown Trilogy and tells the story of a forty-six year old bachelor searching for love.
Tickets are £6 per session (£5 for students) - you can find out more and reserve a place on the Chinese Visual Festival website: www.chinesevisualfestival.org
School/department website http://www.bbk.ac.uk/culture/
