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After screening his latest film Caught by the Tides at the Busan International Film Festival, director Jia Zhang-ke met with the press, accompanied by his wife Zhao Tao. A frequent visitor to the Biff, Jia started by saying he is recovering from eye surgery.

Caught by the Tides repurposes footage Jia shot over a 23-year span. “I started the project when digital cameras first became available to us,” he said. “Over the years I amassed a lot of footage I never used. During the pandemic, when it seemed like one era was ending and another beginning, I decided to edit the footage together.”

While the same lead actors appear throughout the film, Jia said that their characters actually have different back stories. Qiaoqiao, the iconic role played by Zhao Tao, shows up in several variations.

“While editing, I realized that trying to describe a character’s life through words and conversations is very limiting,...

Find all of our Cannes 2024 coverage here.Illustrations by Maddie Fischer.This year at Cannes, we invited a number of attendees to share their impressions from the festival across various categories. We had a few ideas for what those categories might be, but they had many more, and the results are somewhere between a critics’ grid and a yearbook superlatives page. We're glad we asked.Mark AschGiovanni Marchini CamiaJordan CronkJon DieringerFlavia DimaLeonardo GoiEric HynesDaniel KasmanJessica KiangElena LazicManuela LazicSavina PetkovaAndréa PicardAdam PironCaitlin QuinlanVadim RizovRafa Sales RossDavid Schwartz (independent programmer)Pedro Segura (independent programmer and critic)Öykü SofuoğluHannah StrongFind all of our Cannes 2024 coverage here.Back to top.Back to top.Back to top.Back to top.Back to top.Back to top.Back to top.Back to top.Back to top.Back to top.

Illustrations by Maddie Fischer.Throughout the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, we'll be publishing a wide variety of interviews, dispatches, capsules, ballots, and lists. Subscribe to the Weekly Edit newsletter for exclusive contributions from filmmakers, critics, and programmers on the Croisette.Interviews“A Whole World: A Conversation with Andrea Arnold” by Caitlin QuinlanThe Carrosse d’Or–winner describes her raw, lived-in films as cinematic jigsaw puzzles.Dispatches“The Center Will Not Hold” by Leonardo GoiWhile the festival maintained its routine ostrich-like stance, some of the most intriguing films dove right into our troubled times.“Final Warnings” by Daniel KasmanQuentin Dupieux’s latest and Jean-Luc Godard’s last interrogate the death and life of great cinema.“Let There Be Light” by Leonardo GoiBeyond works by established filmmakers, some of the festival’s most singular titles were films from new and emerging voices.Capsules“First Impressions” by Giovanni Marchini Camia, Jordan Cronk, Beatrice Loayza,...

Jia Zhangke’s is often a cinema of déjà vu: “We’re again in the northern Chinese city of Datong,” Giovanni Marchini Camia wrote for Sight and Sound back in 2019, “it’s again the start of the new millennium, Qiao is again dating a mobster, yet no one else makes a reappearance and there are enough differences to signal that this isn’t a sequel or remake.” Camia was writing about Ash Is Purest White yet much of the same could be said for Caught by the Tides, the director’s latest experiment in plundering his archive––indeed his memories––and spinning what he finds into something new. The protagonist of Tides is again named Qiao and is again played by Zhao Tao, appearing here in more than 20 years of the director’s footage and allowing the viewer to watch that singular creative partnership evolve in real time––one of...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSSubscribe to Notebook magazine before November 1 to receive Issue 4, which explores cinematic soundscapes in their diverse sonic forms and includes contributions from filmmakers like Pedro Costa, Garrett Bradley, and Dominga Sotomayor, pop musician Julia Holter, plus a wide range of artists, writers, and scholars. Subscribers will also receive with this issue a very special gift, a seven-inch record featuring a song by filmmaker Gus Van Sant and a field recording by sound designer Leslie Shatz.This week brought the sad, shocking news that the legendary Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien has retired from filmmaking due to illness. Hou's family confirmed in a statement that he is battling Alzheimer's, and the effects of long Covid have forced him to stop making films; they requested privacy during this time, adding that he is healthy overall, in the presence of family.

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSAnna May Wong in Piccadilly.Trailblazing film star Anna May Wong will be the first Asian American to appear on US currency. Wong, whose legacy is overviewed in this Guardian article by Pamela Hutchinson, will be the face of more than 300 million quarters.Alice Diop has won the Prix Jean Vigo, an award given to a French director each year since 1951, for her first fiction feature Saint Omer. Earlier this year, the film won won two awards at the Venice Film Festival and was selected as the French entry for Best International Film at the 2023 Oscars.Paweł Pawlikowski’s next feature—tentatively titled The Island—will be led by Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara. Per Variety, they play an American couple who “turn their backs on civilization to build a secluded paradise,” until a...