Unknown Pleasures
This end-of-year cycle is an opportunity to bring together some of the finest 35mm prints in our collections.
The criteria that led to this selection:
a) the rarity of the chosen movie on film
b) the effect of contrast (period, style, culture) between one film and the other
c) the quality of conservation of the print
Stephanie Creaghan's The Dailies is an ingenious series of very short works in which video art and cinema overlap. Nineteen titles from this series are featured in our December program as a dreamy and intimate tribute to the cinephile experience.
Stephanie Creaghan makes work about how violence inserts itself into communication, combining different pathways (like audio and video) to uncover these latent forms of manipulation to bring to light the undiscussed/repressed.
In northern China in 2001, Xiao Ji and Bin Bin are two young adults enjoying life without a thought for tomorrow. Hanging out in the streets, they meet Qiao Qiao, a local singing star. Xiao Ji falls in love with her and tries to win her love despite the presence of her possessive manager, who is also her lover. The situation gets tougher, and the two young men, feeling they have nothing to lose, try something big and risky.
Jia Zhangke
Jia Zhangke is a Chinese-language film and television director, screenwriter, producer, actor and writer. He is the dean of the Shanxi Film Academy of Shanxi Media College and the dean of the Vancouver Film School of Shanghai University. He graduated from the Literature Department of Beijing Film Academy. He is generally regarded as a leading figure of the "Sixth Generation" movement of Chinese cinema, a group that also includes such figures as Wang Xiaoshuai, Lou Ye, Wang Quan'an and Zhang Yuan. Jia's films have received critical praise and have been recognized internationally, notably winning the Venice Film Festival's top award Golden Lion for Still Life. He is the only Chinese who was awarded the Carrosse d'Or lifetime achievement award at the Cannes Film Festival.
