Filming on the margins

Dates: 2-3 April 2010

Venue: Hong Kong Science Museum Lecture Hall

Languages: English and Mandarin with simultaneous interpretation

Co-organised by the CEFC and HKIFF 2010

Independent film in China has, from its inception, been associated with the margins of society: the alternative world of artists in Wu Wenguang’s Bumming in Beijing, laid-off workers in Wang Bing’s West of Tracks, or the victims of Mao’s campaigns in Hu Jie’s Though I am gone. Two recent films offer an opportunity to reflect on the question of margins and central values. Zhao Liang’s Petition films the “petitioners,” victims of injustice from the whole of China who have exhausted all channels of appeal, over a period of ten years, thus giving voice to their grievances that no-one will listen to. Lou Ye’s film Nights of Spring Fever, loosely based on Yu Dafu’s early narrative explorations of sexuality, breaks with this aesthetics of documentary realism, social approach and political commitment, giving primacy to individuality, and a more subjective approach to questions of sexuality and identity. Taken together, they represent two different directions within independent cinema, opening new angles for discussion on realism, social issues, and “independence.”

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Programme:

Please note that the screenings of Petition (2 April) and Spring Fever (3 April) are sold out. However, tickets are available via Urbtix for the screening of the director’s cut of Petition <http://www.hkiff.org.hk/eng/film/title/34155-petition-directors-cut.html>  (315 min, Chinese subtitltes only) on 31 March and the second screening of Spring Fever on 5 April <http://www.hkiff.org.hk/eng/film/title/34187-spring-fever.html> . 

April 2 (Friday)

12:30 Screening: Zhao Liang, Petition (2009, 124 min)

Followed by Q&A with director Zhao Liang

Panel discussion (free admission):

Chair: Jean-Philippe Béja, Senior Research Fellow, French Centre for Research on Contemporary China

15:15 Jean-Philippe Tessé (Deputy chief editor, Les Cahiers du cinéma): Order and Disorder in Zhao Liang’s films.

15:45 Yu Jianrong 于建嵘 (Professor, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences): Petitioning: the inextricable dilemma in Chinese politics  上访：中国政治的二难选择

16:15 Zhao Liang

16:45 Roundtable discussion

17:30 End

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April 3 (Saturday)

12:30 Screening: Lou Ye, Spring Fever (2009, 112 min)

Panel discussion (free admission):

Chair: Sebastian Veg (Researcher, French Centre for Research on Contemporary China)

15:00 Opening remarks: Marginality and individuality from Yu Dafu’s to Lou Ye’s Spring Fever.

15:20 Esther C. M. Yau 丘静美 (Associate Professor, University of Hong Kong): Eros and Melancholy in Summer Palace and Spring Fever

15:50 Emilie Yeh Yueh-yu 葉月瑜 (Professor, Hong Kong Baptist University), discussant.

16:10 Jean-Philippe Tessé (Deputy chief editor, Les Cahiers du cinéma), discussant.

17:00 End

To listen to this seminar: