72nd San Sebastian Festival - 20/28 September 2023
71SSIFF - 22/30 September 2023
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Z365" or "Festival all year round" is the new strategic point of the Festival in which converge investigation, accompaniment and development of new talents (Ikusmira Berriak, Nest); training and cinematic knowledge transfer (Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola, Zinemaldia + Plus, Filmmakers' dialogue); and investigation, disclosure and cinematic thought (Z70 project, Thought and Discussion and Research and publications).
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Agenda
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Digital shadows: last generation chinese film
Films
Films
Thematic retrospective - DIGITAL SHADOWS: LAST GENERATION CHINESE FILM
Thematic retrospective - DIGITAL SHADOWS: LAST GENERATION CHINESE FILM
Cui Zi'en
China
82 min.
With his first digital feature, Cui Ze?en ushered a new era for Chinese queer cinema. The film unfolds as a serendipitous succession of sketches on gay desire. Realism is not the rule of the game for Cui Zi'en, who intertwines long takes, mundane actions and non-professional acting à la Warhol with a more baroque, whimsical, surreal, but also darker inspiration.
Jia Zhang-ke
China
30 min.
Short film
This short documentary - which became the inspiration for Unknown Pleasures - is made up of 30 single-sequence shots filmed over a period of 45 days in which we can see anonymous passers-by, travellers, railroad and bus workers in and around the small mining town of Datong, in Shanxi Province.
Jia Zhang-ke
China
113 min.
Jia Zhangke films Datong's post-industrial wasteland to frame the various ways a trio of disaffected youths are ?at odds? with their surroundings. Best friends Bin Bin and Xiao Ji have girl problems and wander aimlessly on their bikes, until they eventually meet Qiao Qiao, a model/singer only two steps from prostitution.
Wu Wenguang
China
170 min.
Fascinated with the concept of "personal documentary", Wu Wenguang edited the footage of an unfinished film into this Fuck Cinema, a pungent exploration of the unbalance between those who yield power in the film industry and the perennial outsiders: Wang Zhutian, a homeless peasant who tries to peddle his autobiographical script; young girls from the provinces auditioning for the part of a hooker; and Xiao Wu, an illegal DVD seller hounded by the police.
Ning Hao
China
105 min.
Hounded by real estate speculators, a factory manager hopes to save his business when a precious piece of jade is found on his property. But now everybody is after the stone, from corrupt businessmen to gangsters, bimbo femmes fatales and small-time thugs. This film fired the starter?s gun for a new kind of comedy, made in China.
Ying Liang
China
111 min.
Against the backdrop of an industrial accident befalling the Sichuan town of Zigong, Ying Liang mixes documentary and fiction to narrate the travails of Xiaofen, a secretary who has to deal with a slacker boyfriend, her mother's eagerness to find her a husband, an uneasy reunion with her long-missing father, the victimization of women in her law firm and an industrialist's ruthless contempt for the welfare of his workers.
Ou Ning
China
85 min.
Ou and Cao gave a camera to Zhang Jinli, a restaurant owner and neighbourhood activist who kept refusing to move out when the government decreed the demolition of their neighbourhood prior to the Beijing Olympics. The resulting video, Meishi Street, is a powerful document on the ravage caused by the chaiqian (demolition and relocation) policy applied by government and corporations intent on urban renewal.
Peng Tao
China
99 min.
"I have found a girl for you," says Uncle to his nephew Luo Jiang. "She's 11 years old and can't walk." The girl has been bought for 1,000 yuans (about ?100) so they can use her to beg in the street. The film, performed by non-professional actors, focuses on the beggars? everyday routine seen from the point of view of the children they exploit in their struggle to survive.
Zhao Ye
China
92 min.
The Jalainur coal mine, reason to be for the last Chinese steam engines, is about to close. The old Zhu, a veteran train conductor, has decided to retire a few weeks early to be with his daughter, who lives miles away near the Russian border. His apprentice and close friend, Li Zhizhong, a train signalman, boards the train to be with him until the last minute.
Emily Tang
China
97 min.
This documentary/fiction hybrid interweaves the checkered lives of two women: one fictional, Li Yueying, who is uneducated, unskilled and repressed, but who decides to tempt fate and change her life; and another real, Jenny, whose marriage to a Hong Kong man ended in divorce and financial hardship. An intimate portrayal of women in China.
Yang Lina
China
87 min.
In this "personal documentary", director Yang Lina follows the romantic life of Mr. An, an 89-year-old from Beijing who has two passions in life: ballroom dancing in the park with like-minded enthusiasts; and his dancing partner, the 50-something Xiao Wei. Both Mr. An and Xiao Wei are married, and their respective families have their two cents to say about the relationship.
Du Haibin
China
117 min.
The 2008 Sichuan earthquake struck at 14:28 on May 12, killing 69,000 people and rendering 15 million homeless. Days later, Du Haibin arrived in Beichuan, the hardest hit town, and started shooting, letting his subjects address him freely. Fragments of (contradictory) reality therefore coexist without explanation, judgment or commentary, conveying an acute sense of chaos.
Huang Weikai
China
58 min.
For this film, Huang Weikai collected more than 1,000 hours of footage shot by a group of amateur videographers in the streets of his hometown, Guangzhou. He then selected 20-odd incidents, reworked the images into quasi-surreal grainy black-and-white and montaged them to create a kaleidoscopic view of the great southern metropolis, in all her vibrant, loud and mean chaos.
Liu Jiayin
China
133 min.
While making and eat dumplings, each in their own way, two parents and their daughter exchange acerbic remarks on how to cut chives or what to do about the father's failing business. Through rigorous composition in only nine shots, director Liu Jiayin succeeds in making every gesture, every verbal exchange reorganise the balance of power between the three protagonists.
Pema Tseden (aka Wanma Caidan)
China
117 min.
A film crew drives through the region of Amdo in search of the perfect cast to play in a classic Tibetan opera. Given that opera is a dying art, and Amdo society is undergoing profound changes, the challenge is to find performers who can still sing the parts. Not only that, but Drobe, the young woman who would be the most suited to play the lead part, has a romantic agenda all of her own?
Ying Liang
China
20 min.
Short film
In 2004, Ying Liang witnessed a horrible bus accident that became front page news. In Chinese, "monument" and "sadness" have the same pronunciation. Rehearsed and shot in 48 hours, the film, that unfolds through a brilliantly composed single-shot sequence, is a small monument to the dead and a tribute to the unspeakable (and unspoken) sadness of the survivors in the midst of a media circus.
Wang Bing
Hong Kong (China)-France-Belgium
112 min.
Between 1957 and 1958, 3,000 people labelled as ?rightwingthinking? by the Chinese Communist Party - largely for having expressed their opinion during the ?Hundred Flowers? period - were sent to the Jiabiangou Reeducation Camp in the Gobi desert. In 1960, the survivors were packed off to the Mingshui Annex. The film chronicles their last three months of imprisonment.
Zhao Dayong
China
96 min.
An exploration of the "low life" of characters who still dream of living big: a young con artist who swindles people newly arrived from the countryside in search of work: his girlfriend, who lives off a sugar daddy she can't stand, and a prison guard who forces inmates to read aloud the poetry he writes in his free time. All contribute their grain of sand to drawing an unconventional portrait of Guangzhou.
Zhu Wen
China
80 min.
Thomas is a painter trekking through the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, and Mao the scruffy "innkeeper" who lodges him. A well-known parable opens the film: the philosopher Zhuangzi dreamt that he was a butterfly, but wondered if he wasn?t a butterfly who dreamt he was Zhuangzi? In real life Thomas Rohdewald is a diplomat from Luxembourg and Mao Yan one of the most famous contemporary Chinese painters.
Li Hongqi
China
91 min.
In a gloomy little northern town in Inner Mongolia it's time for winter break, and the local kids have nothing to do, while the adults are apathetic. Tension mounts and breaks in unexpected, and often wickedly funny ways, bringing to mind the dry humour and laconic dialogues of Jim Jarmusch, Aki Kaurismaki or Samuel Beckett.
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