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It is difficult to apply a purely critical perspective to Beijing Bastards, a film that stands as a landmark of independent Chinese cinema. Good or bad – such judgments feel irrelevant for works that can be categorized as Generational Cinema. The few years past since 1993 feel like centuries for China, and the film remains a raw reflection of the post-Tiananmen era, at least of the No-Future youth that persisted. In itself, it is simply one of the early attempts at independent Chinese cinema by a member of the now-famous Sixth Generation of the Beijing Film Academy, but its significance goes beyond that.

Follow our Tribute to Chinese Mainland Cinema by clicking the image below

When it comes to the plot – but does the plot really have any importance as the movie is mainly a vehicle for Cui Jian‘s music, the legend of Beijing’s rock scene – we wander with a...

The First International Film Festival, held annually high up on the plains of Tibet, prides itself as a discovery festival and has been described as a Chinese equivalent of Sundance.

But noted Chinese filmmaker Guan Hu dealt First organizers a blow on Sunday, when as head of the main competition jury, he refused to announce a best film winner.

“It is not that we didn’t see any good films, but the selection overall was not bold enough,” Guan said from the stage. In other comments, Guan suggested that the festival, aged 18 years old, should by now have reached the age of maturity, but in fact still needs to grow up.

Fortunately, the jury did decide on a slew of other prizes. These included “Sailing Song of June” as the Grand Jury prize winner and “Chengzi 1” as winner of the Spirit of Innovation award.

In recent editions, First has selected...

Taipei Film Festival has dropped Berlinale-winning Chinese director Wang Xiaoshuai as jury head of its International New Talent competition, following a heated debate on local social media over Wang’s reported role in the death of An Elephant Sitting Still director Hu Bo back in 2017.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the International New Talent competition, which will see 10 debut and second feature films vying for the grand prize and the special jury prize. Wang was to be the jury president, with fellow jury members including Taiwanese actor-turned director Kai Ko, Cheng-Sim Lim, San Sebastian Film Festival’s delegate for US and East Asia,...

Amsterdam- and Beijing-based Fortissimo Films is to pre-sell Chinese crime drama “Family at large,” kicking off at the Cannes Market.

The film had previously been announced with sales handled jointly by Fortissimo and Rediance. Now, Fortissimo alone is representing rights worldwide, ex-China.

Directed by Kang Bo, the film is set in the chilly far north of the country. A man, nicknamed “Reindeer,”, is released from prison and becomes involved in a child-abduction case across Northeast China. The man, a pregnant young woman and a mute boy wade into the dense forests of the frozen North in search of an abducted child. The film exposes a family-run human trafficking organization and portrays the underworld of the Northern border of China.

The cast is headed by the in-demand Hu Ge “(“The Wild Goose Lake,” Wong Kar-wai’s TV series “Blossoms”), “Angels Wear White” star Wen Qi (aka Vicky Chen), Yan Ni and Song Jia.

Taiwanese family drama ‘Old Fox’ won the most awards on the night.

China-set drama Stonewalling, directed by husband-and-wife team Huang Ji and Ryuji Otsuka, won best narrative feature at the 60th Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan on Saturday (November 25).

Taiwanese family drama Old Fox won the most awards on the night, including best director for Hsiao Ya-chuan, best supporting actor for veteran Akio Chen, makeup and costume design, and best film score.

Scroll down for full list of winners

Mainland Chinese director Huang and Japan’s Otsuka were in attendance at Taipei’s National Dr Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall to...

Released during the Chinese New Year of 2022, this Korean War battlefield drama depicting two squads of snipers, the Chinese and their US adversaries, from Zhang Yimou and daughter Zhang Mo is a small scaled sideshow instead of an all-out warfare between the countries involved as compared to ”The Battle at Lake Changjin II”.

During the “Cold Gun Movement” of 1952, the Chinese People Volunteer Army took part in guerrilla warfare helping their northern comrades to fight the invading US troops. A group of young snipers known as The Fifth Squad led by sergeant Liu Wen Wu, a sharpshooter nicknamed “Grim Reaper” by his enemies, is one such unit. While on an extraction mission to bring back comrade Liang Liang, a spy who has vital information concerning the US army, Liu and his squad felt into a trap laid by a group of US snipers.

John, a sharpshooter himself, has been tracking...

"Slow cinema" isn't so much a movement as it is a style. As the name implies, Slow cinema is characterized by long, extended shots, often without music or dialogue, wherein the camera rests, simply observing for minutes at a time. Perhaps it will be a slow tracking shot of a muddy Eastern European farm, as in the works of Bela Tarr. Perhaps it will be a penetrating closeup of a suffering young man as in Hu Bo's "An Elephant Sitting Still." Perhaps it will be a shot of a remote Filipino jungle, trees whipping in the wind, with a human character barely perceptible in...

The post Slow Cinema to Quicken the Heart: The Films of Tsai Ming-liang appeared first on /Film.

(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they've been watching, why it's worth checking out, and where you can stream it.)

The Movie: "An Elephant Sitting Still"

Where You Can Stream It: Ovid, Kanopy.

The Pitch: The first thing you may notice about Hu Bo's excellent, devastating, aggressively depressive 2018 film "An Elephant Sitting Still" is how grey it is. The sky provides no light or color. The buildings have been blasted by nature into a uniform shade of ash. The small, cramped apartments are shaded like clay or putty. There is a sense that the world is...

The post The Daily Stream: An Elephant Sitting Still Displays Glorious and Profound Suffering appeared first on /Film.

Director Geng Jun regroups his dream team for his latest film, “Manchurian Tiger”, a follow up (or sort of) to his previous “The Hammer and Sickle Are Sleeping” and “Free and Easy”, set once again in and around Hegang, Heilongjiang, the director’s hometown in the cold Northeast of China, and based on everyday quirky characters of the area.

“Manchurian Tiger” is screening at Udine Far East Film Festival

Before the plot takes shape, we see a few sketches introducing the characters. Xu Dong (Zhang Yu) is an excavator machine operator in a mine of this constantly cold Chinese Northeast, and between a cigarette and an excavation, he enjoys the regular visits of his lover Xiaowei (Guo Yue) who is not the first one as we will discover later! Despite her insistence, he is firmly and melancholically convinced that his marriage is the only thing he has left in his life.

Specialty U.S. distribution company KimStim is to give a North American release to “Wood and Water,” a German-made feature set against the backdrop of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.

The film premiered in the Deutsche Perspektive section of this year’s erlinaleand won the Compass-Perspektive Award special mention during the Berlin festival’s summer edition. It also scored at the New Directors/New Films festival at new York’s Lincoln Center.

It is the feature debut of Jonas Bak, who was previously based in London and Hong Kong, where he worked as a freelance film director and director of cinematography, before returning to his native Germany.

“Wood and Water” was shot on 16mm film and is loosely inspired by real events. The film’s lead role is played by Bak’s mother Anke, as she finds herself facing the void of retirement. A trip to Hong Kong, where...

Even with all the havoc the coronavirus wreaked in the world, cinema could not be stopped, so why should Mark Cousins, the solicitous Irish critic-cum-tour guide whose 15-hour “The Story of Film: An Odyssey” was but a tip-of-the-iceberg survey of the medium’s infinite possibilities?

Making the most of his time in lockdown, Cousins compiled an appendix/capper to that marathon series, delivering “The Story of Film: A New Generation” on opening day of the Cannes Film Festival. This latest installment (doubtful the last) is less focused on where the medium’s been than on where it’s headed, focusing mostly on 21st-century examples, from Attenberg to Zama, that point the way forward.

At two hours and 40 minutes, it’s a longer epilogue than audiences needed perhaps, but then, no one would accuse Cousins of brevity. And for those who appreciate the director’s wide-eyed and open-hearted way of looking at cinema,...

Columbia Pictures’ “Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway” hopped up to second in China this weekend, but was unable to scurry past local sports drama “Never Stop” despite an extra day’s lead.

“Peter Rabbit 2” grossed a relatively unremarkable $969,000 (RMB6.2 million) on opening day Friday but managed to pull in $7.8 million from 10,500 screens over the three-day holiday weekend, according to data from ticketing agency Maoyan. Monday marks the national Chinese holiday of the Dragon Boat Festival, and will likely bringing further sales for the family-friendly film. Based on early estimates, Sony projects that it will gross $11.1 million by the end of the extended four-day weekend — putting it 15% ahead of recent comp “Raya and the Last Dragon.”

Its total performance may not, however, be enough for the sequel to best the first film’s $26.3 million China cumulative back in 2018. Maoyan currently predicts “Peter Rabbit 2” will gross a total of $18.9 million in the territory.

A sport as quickfire as indoor volleyball deserves a nimbler workout than it gets in “Leap,” Peter Ho-Sun Chan’s lavish but curiously low-boil based-in-truth sports movie. Telling the decades-spanning tale of the Chinese Women’s Volleyball team and its star-player-turned-head-coach, Lang Ping, it’s essentially a rise-and-fall-and-rise-again story. But in presenting a sanitized vision of Chinese patriotism as pretty much the sole motivating force for any of its characters, despite a hefty runtime and some unimpeachably glossy craft, the film is a mis-hit spike, delivering far less penetration than its toned, muscular surface promises.

Ignoring or eliding whole decades of interim drama (Lang’s first stint as China’s coach is a particularly strange omission), the film is organized instead around three centerpiece matches: China versus Japan at the World Cup in 1981; China versus USA at the Beijing Olympics in 2008; and China versus Brazil at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Each...

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Acasă, My Home (Radu Ciorniciuc)

When encountering the societal and economic structures of everyday life, it’s not a rare dream for many to wonder what life may look like off the grid and out of the hands of a bureaucratic entity that doesn’t have your best interests in mind. For one family living in the vast water reservoir of the Bucharest Delta, they have made this their reality for the last eighteen years. The Enache family and their nine children call this abandoned area their home, sleeping in their homemade hut, fishing for food, and taking gentle care of this slice of nature directly outside the hectic Romanian capital.

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Art of the Real 2020

Art of the Real, Film at Lincoln Center’s annual showcase of boundary-pushing non-fiction work, is now underway virtually nationwide. Featuring work by Joshua Bonnetta, Sky Hopinka, Hassen Ferhani, Ignacio Agüero, Lisa Marie Malloy and J.P. Sniadecki, Sérgio da Costa and Maya Kosa, Jonathan Perel, Jessica Sarah Rinland, Pacho Velez and Courtney Stephens, and more, the slate provides a comprehensive survey for finding new cinematic ways to look at the world.

Where to Stream: Film at Lincoln Center’s Virtual Cinema

Coded Bias (Shalini Kantayya)

Starting with the work of Joy Buolamwini of the MIT Media Lab, Shalini Kantayya’s Coded Bias is an alarming...

Local war epic Sacrifice held on to the top spot and has reached a cume of $134.2m since opening on October 23.

Local war epic Sacrifice held on to the top spot at the China box office over the weekend (November 6-8), grossing $14.3m, according to figures from Artisan Gateway, while Li Xiaofeng’s Back To The Wharf came in second with $7.1m in its opening three days.

Sacrifice, was produced to celebrate the 70th anniversary of China’s entry into the Korean War, has grossed a cumulative total of $134.2m since opening on October 23.

Executive produced by leading actor-producer Huang Bo,...

The fourth annual Pingyao International Film Festival will run as an in-person event from Oct. 10 to 19 in the central Chinese province of Shanxi.

Chinese director Diao Yinan, who won the 2014 Golden Bear for his gritty thriller “Black Coal, Thin Ice” and premiered his latest neo-noir “Wild Goose Lake” at Cannes last year, will act as “festival mentor,” hosting special screenings of his own works and a masterclass.

In a video message, Diao complimented Pingyao on being “unique and professional,” a place that “gathers people like a bonfire, with everyone chatting around.” He praised the festival for its support of young talent, saying that it has “provided a platform for [young people] to join each other, to discuss openly and explore freely.”

Founded by Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke (“A Touch of Sin”) and Marco Muller, the former director of the Venice Film Festival who serves as Pingyao’s artistic director, the festival unfolds...

Li’s third film premiered in competition at this year’s Shanghai International Film Festival.

Beijing-based sales agent Rediance has picked up international rights to Li Xiaofeng’s Back To The Wharf, which premiered in competition at this year’s Shanghai International Film Festival.

Executive produced by leading actor/producer Huang Bo, the film revolves around a former top high school student returning to the hometown he left 15 years ago following an accident. After meeting an old classmate, he decides to face the wounds of the past and take back control of his life.

Starring Zhang Yu (An Elephant Sitting Still...

As we have also started to deal with Asian music in Asian Movie Pulse lately, a list that features movie soundtracks was a must. In the entries that follow, we have collected 50 films’ scores that have stayed in our minds and have made us happy, sad, or simply to enjoy ourselves while listening to them. From anime to musicals, from cult to art-house and from dramas to comedies, here is a list with 50 works that define the movies they were included at least as much as their visuals.

*Some movies never had their soundtracks released but we felt that the songs included deserve a mention here. By clicking on the titles you can read our reviews of the films, by clicking on the song titles you can listen the tracks from YouTube.

1. 9 Souls

Dip create intense background music that follows rock and alternative paths, with each of the tracks pointing...

A new wave of jam bands on YouTube reminds this Deadhead of the film that launched a thousand grooves

Read all the What I’m really watching choicesThe best arts and entertainment during self-isolation

You know the old Twilight Zone episode, when Burgess Meredith plays a bibliophile survives an H-bomb attack only to shatter his glasses? Well, my current situation is hardly that dire – even living so worryingly close to New York City’s Covid-19 epicentre, Elmhurst hospital. But there is considerable irony that my social calendar has been erased just as my ability to concentrate for anything longer than a haiku is shot.

I have access to as much high-investment/high-reward cinema as I could ever stream. But let’s be real: it ain’t happening. The link to the recent Lav Diaz film shall remain unclicked, as will the one for An Elephant Sitting Still. Now isn’t...

Chinese romantic crime drama “Better Days” directed by Hong Kong’s Derek Tsang, scooped eight awards at this year’s Hong Kong Film Awards, including best film, best director, best screenplay and best actress. Critically acclaimed elderly gay drama “Suk Suk” took the best actor and best supporting actress awards, organizers announced on Wednesday afternoon.

Winners, however, were unable to give acceptance speeches on stage as the awards ceremony was cancelled due to the coronavirus epidemic. The results were announced instead via a 25-minute live streaming event hosted by awards chairman Derek Yee.

Dressed in black tie, Yee appeared to be sitting in a dimly lit VIP cinema among the awards statuettes, yet to be presented to the recipients. He said despite the cancellation of the star-studded awards ceremony, organizers kept the polling going and received 1,675 votes from industry practitioners, about 57% of registered voters.

“Better Days” was yanked by mainland...

Derek Tsang’s school bullying drama won eight awards including best film and best director.

Derek Tsang’s Better Days bagged eight prizes including best film and best director at this year’s Hong Kong Film Awards, which were live streamed on social media as the Covid-19 coronavirus forced organisers to scrap the physical ceremony.

Better Days, a mainland China-set drama about school bullying, also won best actress for Zhou Dongyu’s performance and best new performer for Jackson Yee. The film, produced by Goodfellas Pictures and We Pictures, also won awards for best screenplay, best cinematography, best costume & make-up design and best song.

The full list of nominations for the 39th Hong Kong Film Awards has been revealed. However, the dates are still unknown; the mid-April event in fact, will be probably postponed due to the Covid-19 (a.k.a. coronavirus). So for now let’s just have a look at the nominees.

This year’s edition sees Derek Tsang Kwok-Cheung’s “Better Days” leading the competition with an amazing 12 nominations, followed at close range by Heiward Mak’s “Fagara” with 11 nominations and Wong Hing-Fan’s “I’m Livin’ It” with 10. Moreover, Wilson Yip’s “Ip Man 4: The Finale” bagged 9 nominations, including Best Director and Best Action Choreography.

Read the full list of nominations below:

Better Days by Derek Tsang

Best Film

Better Days by Derek Tsang

Suk Suk by Ray Yeung

Fagara by Heiward Mak

I’m Livin’ It by Wong Hing-fan

The New King Of Comedy by Stephen Chow

Best...

The International Cinephile Society is known for going its own way with its annual awards, and its latest edition is no exception. Leading the field for its 17th awards was Pedro Almodóvar’s semi-autobiographical “Pain and Glory,” which won best picture, and best actor for Antonio Banderas.

The Ics is made up of more than 100 accredited journalists, film scholars, historians and other industry professionals. Led by Ics president Cédric Succivalli, each year the Ics honors the finest in American and international cinema.

Best director went to Céline Sciamma for her 18th-century story of obsession “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” while the film’s Adèle Haenel earned the supporting actress prize.

Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” – which is up for six Oscars this weekend – was another hot Ics favorite, winning original screenplay, ensemble and production design awards.

Vitalina Varela won the lead actress prize for her role as a Cape...

Following our top 50 films of 2019, we’re sharing personal top 10 lists from our contributors. Check out the latest below and see our complete year-end coverage here.

What a way to bid the decade adieu! 2019 boasted an incredible lineup of foreign, art-house and independent films—ranging from character studies to multi-genre fare to ghost stories and socially charged thrillers—and in many ways, this year’s offerings were the perfect distillation and culmination of ten years’ worth of technical, cultural, political and artistic transformations. The growing embrace of large format lenses (Midsommar) and de-aging technology (The Irishman), and bolder experimentations with frame rate, storytelling, structure (Climax) and guerilla filmmaking techniques or Diy methods of production (every Safdie brothers film including Uncut Gems) are but some of these changes, while the proliferation of streaming sites from the popular to the curated breathed new life into overlooked films by allowing smaller-scale titles, inaccessible...

(Welcome to Pop Culture Imports, a column that compiles the best foreign movies and TV streaming right now.) It’s time to shake off the holiday lethargy and set your 2020 New Year’s resolutions: to watch more foreign films. Or at least, catch up on the 2019 ones to add as last-minute additions to your best of […]

The post Pop Culture Imports: ‘Transit,’ ‘Long Day’s Journey Into Night,’ ‘An Elephant Sitting Still,’ And More appeared first on /Film.

Following our top 50 films of 2019, we’re sharing personal top 10 lists from our contributors. Check out the latest below and see our complete year-end coverage here.

It’s been a weird year, to say the least. Personally speaking, 2019 felt like a distinct shift in terms of what exactly I find interesting with film right now. Things aren’t exactly brimming with variety in cinemas, with over 80 percent of the year’s top-grossing movies coming from one studio. And when looking within film communities online, topics are chosen, praised, criticized, analyzed to irrelevance, and then finally dropped when the next thing comes along. Sometimes I think of it as a snake shedding its skin while eating its own tail. Other times I get reminded of the gray goo scenario. Either way, I don’t see a lot of appeal in these sorts of things.

But I don’t intend to use...

As Martin Scorsese once said, “Music and cinema fit together naturally. Because there’s a kind of intrinsic musicality to the way moving images work when they’re put together. It’s been said that cinema and music are very close as art forms, and I think that’s true.” Indeed, the right piece of music–whether it’s an original score or a carefully selected song–can do wonders for a sequence, and today we’re looking at the 20 films that best expressed this notion this year.

From seasoned composers to accomplished musicians, as well as a smattering of soundtracks, each musical example perfectly transported us to the world of the film. Check out our rundown of the top 20, which includes streams to each soundtrack in full where available.

20. Climax (Various Artists)

19. August at Akiko’s (Alex Zhang Hungtai)

18. The Last Black Man in San Francisco (Emile Mosseri)

17. An Elephant Sitting Still...

Following our top 50 films of 2019, we’re sharing personal top 10 lists from our contributors. Check out the latest below and see our complete year-end coverage here.

At the risk of hyperbole, the release year of 2019 is one of the very finest I’ve seen this century, if not of all time. By my count, and bolstered by an incredibly great premiere year in 2018, it featured no less than four bona fide masterpieces, the continued development of many masters of the cinematic medium, and countless pleasures that captivated me throughout the year. Though I wasn’t able to get to all of the films I was hoping to watch before compiling this ultimately preliminary list, these are all utterly remarkable and truly great films.

There’s far too many fantastic films that fall just outside my top fifteen, but here are just a few more notable ones: “I Do Not Care...

It’s been a busy year for the movies, with many of them vying for prominent positions in year-end lists, but one cinematic highlight has continued to dominate the season: “Parasite,” Bong Joon Ho’s sophisticated riff on class warfare and family strife, topped IndieWire’s annual critics survey for best film, director, screenplay, and foreign film.

The fourteenth edition of the survey was its largest, with 304 critics and journalists from around the world voting in a range of categories.

Other winners included “Marriage Story” star Adam Driver for best actor, Lupita Nyong’o for best actress, “The Irishman” mobster Joe Pesci for best supporting actor, and “Marriage Story” lawyer Laura Dern for supporting actress. Roger Deakins scored best cinematography for his acrobatic long-takes in “1917,” Mati Diop’s immigration crisis ghost story “Atlantics” won best first feature, and moon-landing odyssey “Apollo 11” topped best documentary.

The “Parasite” victory marks the latest...

While most film publications stick to a fairly typical list of Best of the Year, Film Comment does things a bit differently. Instead of just listing the very best films that 2019 produced, the outlet goes a step further and also does a list of films that arrived at film festivals and haven’t yet been released this year. Because, as we are all well aware, just because a film arrives at a film festival, that definitely doesn’t mean audiences are guaranteed to see it any time soon (if at all).

Continue reading Film Comment’s Best Of 2019 Includes Underseen Gems Like ‘Transit,’ ‘Atlantics,’ & ‘An Elephant Sitting Still’ at The Playlist.

While we aim to discuss a wide breadth of films each year, few things give us more pleasure than the arrival of bold, new voices. It’s why we venture to festivals and pore over a variety of different features that might bring to light some emerging talent. This year was an especially notable time for new directors making their stamp, and we’re highlighting the handful of 2019 debuts that most impressed us.

Below, one can check out a list spanning a variety of different genres and many are available to stream here. In years to come, take note as these helmers (hopefully) ascend.

Aniara (Pella Kågerman & Hugo Lilja)

The title shares its name with a city-size spacecraft ferrying humans from Earth to Mars in barely three weeks. It’s a routine trip that’s never run into problems with many passengers already having family on the red planet to greet them upon arrival.

Shanghai-born Canadian filmmaker Johnny Ma says he’d planned to make three films in China before moving on to other things, but the current state of the Chinese industry has “forced his hand” and convinced him to move on early after two.

Currently living in Mexico, his next project is actually in TV: a pilot for a series of Asian-American stories for Amazon, in collaboration with the creators of “Westworld” that he says could be a “game-changer” for Asian-American representation.

“I first came here five years ago because I felt my story wasn’t being taken seriously in North America, where I was categorized as a minority filmmaker. I thought I could have more impact in China. But now it’s different,” he told Variety on the sidelines of the International Film Festival and Awards Macao, where his second feature “To Live To Sing” is competing in the new Chinese cinema section.

With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.

Adam (Rhys Ernst)

There’s a specific kind of warm, crowd-pleasing aesthetic–often in the coming-of-age subgenre–that seems to find a home among the Sundance programming more so than any other festival. A few years ago, Sean Baker’s Tangerine heralded a major breakthrough for transgender representation in cinema and broke this mold in formally compelling ways. For better or worse, Adam has now arrived to fit more in the aforementioned lighthearted, simplistic, but ultimately empathetic dramedy conceit. – Jordan R. (full review)

Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes

Age Out (A.J. Edwards)

The only thing worse than never getting your happy ending is having it...

This weekend sees a showdown between two of the Chinese-speaking film world’s major awards events, with both the Golden Rooster Awards, held on the China mainland, and Taiwan’s Golden Horse Awards taking place on Saturday (November 23).

Ahead of the ceremonies, it was announced this week that the state-approved Golden Roosters will be held annually from this year, moving from the biannual schedule it has operated since 2005.

The move will be viewed as part of an effort to establish the Roosters as the primary awards ceremony of the Chinese-speaking movie world, ahead of the Golden Horses, which have routinely been referred to as the ‘Chinese Oscars.’

Earlier this year, China’s authorities put the blockers on Chinese actors, directors and producers submitting to this year’s Golden Horses, significantly restricting the ceremony’s nominations pool.

The decision was made after the political fallout from last year’s Golden Horses,...

Despite rising political antagonism, China and Taiwan have for years been able to put aside their differences for a night of shared glitz and glamour at the annual Taipei-based Golden Horse Awards, known as Asia’s Oscars. But with cross-strait relations at a nadir, that’s about to change.

Chinese-language cinema is set for a showdown the weekend of Nov. 22-24, when China’s Communist Party-approved film awards, the biannual Golden Roosters, go head-to-head with the Golden Horse Awards on the same exact day. In a retaliatory move, Beijing has scheduled its ceremony to coincide with Taipei’s event, which itself angered mainland nationalists in 2018 by honoring a pro-Taiwan independence filmmaker. Chinese authorities have banned all of their industry professionals from attending the rival ceremony and intimidated others regionally with the threat of blacklisting.

The mainland’s boycott has put Chinese cinema in a bind. Without mainland films, the Golden...

Still reeling from the cancellation of the theatrical release of its blockbuster “The Eight Hundred,” production studio Huayi Brothers has been hit with another setback: Its comedy “The Last Wish” has also been quietly pulled from China’s summer lineup. Both films have fallen afoul of China’s increasingly heavy-handed censors.

The unwelcome development comes as Huayi has announced that it expects losses of more than $48 million in the first half of 2019. That will pile onto a reported net loss of RMB1.09 billion (about $160 million) last year, creating a difficult hole for the company to climb out of without a new box-office hit.

Directed by Tian Yusheng, the writer-director of the bankable “The Ex-File” romcom series, “The Last Wish” stars Peng Yuchang (“An Elephant Sitting Still”) and Taiwanese actor Darren Wang in a buddy comedy about a young man with a terminal disease who hopes to lose his virginity before he dies.

The prestigious Golden Horse Awards announced Wednesday that it will hold its annual ceremony in Taiwan on the same day this year as China’s Communist-backed Golden Rooster Awards – which virtually assures that no major mainland Chinese talent will attend the event known as Asia’s Oscars on November 23.

Hong Kong director Johnnie To will act as chairman of the Golden Horse jury, the festival said. He has been nominated eight times for the best director award and won it on three occasions: in 2000 for “The Mission,” 2004 for “Breaking News” and 2012 for “Life Without Principle.”

He thanked director Ang Lee, head of last year’s executive committee, for the invitation, saying: “The Golden Horse Awards are the most prestigious awards in the Chinese-language cinema and a very important recognition that my films have received. Before I’m awarded another prize, I feel honored to have this chance to offer my services.

Hu Bo ’s An Elephant Sitting Still screens at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood) Friday May 24th, Saturday May 25th, and Sunday May 26th. The screenings begin at 7:00 each evening. Facebook invite can be found Here.

Showing the strong influence of Béla Tarr, under whom director Hu Bo served as protégé circa 2016, viewers of Bo’s feature debut An Elephant Sitting Still will also find whiffs of the work of Jacques Rivette, Jia Zhangke, and David Foster Wallace. 16-year-old Wei’s attempt to stand up to a bully finds him with the need to get out of town, and Bo follows Wei as a band of misfits attach themselves to him while he dreams of escaping to Manchuria to see a perhaps-mythical elephant. An Elephant Sitting Still is at once the most exciting feature debut and saddest swan song of recent years—Hu Bo tragically committed suicide...

The debut feature from writer and director Hu Bo, An Elephant Sitting Still, caused a sensation when it screened at the 2018 Berlinale. Nearly four hours long, the movie unfolds over the course of a day in and around a blue-collar housing development in a third-tier Chinese town. Interlocking narratives follow a bullied high school student, an elderly parent pressured to move into a nursing home, a gangster who must avenge an attack on his brother and a girl’s illicit relationship with a married teacher. The movie’s running time, difficult subject matter and troubled production have left an air of […]...

The debut feature from writer and director Hu Bo, An Elephant Sitting Still, caused a sensation when it screened at the 2018 Berlinale. Nearly four hours long, the movie unfolds over the course of a day in and around a blue-collar housing development in a third-tier Chinese town. Interlocking narratives follow a bullied high school student, an elderly parent pressured to move into a nursing home, a gangster who must avenge an attack on his brother and a girl’s illicit relationship with a married teacher. The movie’s running time, difficult subject matter and troubled production have left an air of […]...

“From Tomorrow, I Will,” which plays in the Berlinale Forum, heads the festival slate of indie Chinese sales company Rediance. The suburban drama is co-directed by China’s Wu Linfeng and Ivan Markovic, who hails from the former Yugoslavia.

Sales agents from mainland China are still relatively few and far between, reflecting a paucity of film financiers and studios interested in making the commitment needed to earn significant revenues from overseas territories. China’s underground film movement is increasingly under threat, further limiting the availability of independent movies with international potential.

Titles from more established arthouse directors, such as this year’s Berlin crop of Zhang Yimou, Wang Quan’an, Lou Ye and Wang Xiaoshuai, are usually represented by European or Hong Kong sales outfits. In contrast, Rediance’s lineup is made up of films sourced from far outside the mainstream and by filmmakers who have not yet established major international reputations.

Shortly after completing “An Elephant Sitting Still,” Chinese novelist and filmmaker Hu Bo took his own life. The 29-year-old would not live to see his four-hour epic premiere at the Berlin Film Festival a few months later, which is made especially tragic by how well received the movie has been. KimStim and the Film Society of Lincoln Center have released a trailer for “An Elephant Sitting Still,” which you can watch below.

Here’s the premise, which is fittingly lengthy: “Under the gloomy sky of a small town in northern China, different protagonists’ lives are intertwined in this furious tale of nihilistic rage. While protecting his friend from a dangerous school bully, 16-year-old Wei Bu pushes the tormentor down a staircase. Wei escapes the scene and later learns that the bully is hospitalized and gravely injured. Wei’s neighbor, the 60-year-old Wang Jin, is estranged from his family and, with nothing to lose,...

"A long, sad, moving swan song." KimStim has debuted the full-length official Us trailer for Hu Bo's highly acclaimed Chinese drama An Elephant Sitting Still, which is finally getting a theatrical release starting in March. This is Hu Bo's first & final film, as he tragically took his own life after finishing the film. This premiered at the Berlin Film Festival last year, where it won the Fipresci Prize and a Best First Feature "Special Mention", and it has also played at numerous other festivals including New Directors/New Films in NYC, plus the Sydney and Edinburgh Film Festivals. The film actually runs nearly 4 hours in total, and tells a story spanning one full day in a small rural Chinese town, linking their interactions and following various characters throughout the area. The focus is on bullying and the way people affect each other and treat each other. Starring Yuchang Peng,...

It’s almost impossible to watch the new trailer for “An Elephant Sitting Still” and not think about the tragic circumstances surrounding the film. However, even with the real-life events that will follow the film forever floating in your thoughts, there’s so much beauty in the trailer that you’re okay with a little sadness.

For those unaware, “An Elephant Sitting Still” is a film from the Chinese author-turned-filmmaker Hu Bo.

Continue reading ‘An Elephant Sitting Still’ Trailer: Hu Bo’s First (And Final) Film Is A Beautiful Retelling Of A Classic Greek Myth at The Playlist.

Contemporary Chinese Cinema is a column devoted to exploring contemporary Chinese-language cinema primarily as it is revealed to us at North American multiplexes.Animal World2018 has been a remarkably strong year for Chinese language cinema, in terms of films on the international festival and arthouse circuit, retrospectives across the United States, and commercial films exhibited at multiplexes in a handful of North American cities. New movies from Jia Zhangke, Bi Gan (Long Day’s Journey Into Night), Wang Bing (Dead Souls), Hu Bo (An Elephant Sitting Still), Jiang Wen (Hidden Man) and Zhang Yimou (Shadow) electrified festival audiences around the globe, though none have as yet seen commercial release in North America. Rather than focus on these kinds of films, all of which have been covered elsewhere on the Notebook over the course of the year, this column has primarily been devoted to following those Chinese-language films that see small multiplex releases,...

“Lost Paradise,” from Macau and Hong Kong, won the best project award at the 3rd International Film Festival & Awards Macao’s project market.

To be directed by Tracy Choi Ian-sin and produced by Lai Ching-man, the film will look at a girl’s breakdown after sexual harassment. The story is to be told from the point of view of a close friend.

The award carries a cash prize of $15,000. The producer-director duo will use the funds to find a scriptwriter and develop the project further. The aim is to raise the $1.3 million budget from Hong Kong and Taiwan, with a view to starting principal photography in 2020. Choi previously directed 2017’s “Sisterhood,” that won the most promising talent award at the Osaka Asian film festival and scored nominations at the Hong Kong film awards.

The best co-production award and a cash prize of $10,000 went to Singapore’s “Ajoomma,” about a widow...

Event cinema specialist Trafalgar Releasing has scored another big documentary result, this time with Burn The Stage: The Movie, about K-Pop phenomenon Bts. Released globally on November 15 in a limited engagement, the film has drawn in 1.4M admissions in more than 79 territories and 2,650 movie theaters for a box office of $14M. Featuring behind the scenes interviews and tour footage, the film reached the number ten box office spot in the U.S., taking $3.6M with a screen average of $5,900 across 617 theaters. In the UK, the film achieved the number six spot with a cumulative total of $830,000. Other notable successes include achieving over 100,000 admissions in both the Philippines and Indonesia, gaining over $14,000 screen average in Denmark and reaching a box office of $800,000 in Germany and Austria with a $4,500 screen average.

An acceptance speech at the prestigious 55th Golden Horse Awards — sometimes referred to as the Chinese industry’s version of the...

Zhang Yimou’s Shadow walked away with the most number of awards, including best director.

The late Hu Bo’s directorial debut An Elephant Sitting Still was named best film at the 55th Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan, while Zhang Yimou’s Shadow walked away with the most number of awards, including best director.

Two further mainland Chinese films – Dying To Survive and Long Day’s Journey Into Night – each nabbed three wins. Mainland films most noticeably dominated the stage taking most of the awards at the ceremony held on Saturday (Nov 18) at Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall in Taipei.

Fall festival favorites including “Manta Ray,” Jinpa,” and “Cities of Last Things” will line up in the main competition of next month’s Tokyo Filmex festival. The event runs Nov. 17-25 at venues in the Hibiya and Yurakucho suburbs of Tokyo.

Directed by Phuttiphong Aroonpheng “Manta Ray” recently won the Horizons award at the Venice festival. Pema Tseden’s “Jinpa” won the best screenplay award in the same section. Ho Wi Ding’s “Cities” won the best film prize in the Platform section at Toronto.

Other films making up the ten title competition section include: “Sibel,” by Turkey’s Cagla Zenkirci and Guillaume Giovanetti; “Ayka,” by Russia’s Sergei Dvortsevoy; Yeo Siew Hua’s Locarno Golden Leopard winner “A Land Imagined”; “A Family Tour,” by Ying Liang; “Long Days Journey Into Night,” directed by China’s Bi Gan, which had its premiere in Un Certain regard at Cannes; “An Elephant Sitting Still,...