By Jake Howell jake.howell@utoronto.ca

Countdown To Cannes: Jia Zhangke

Posted Sunday, May 5th, 2013 - Comments Off on Countdown To Cannes: Jia Zhangke
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JIA ZHANGKE

Background: Chinese; born Fenyang, Shanxi, China, 1970. “Jia” is Zhangke’s family name.

Known for / styles: The World (2004), Still Life (2006), 24 City (2008); a leader in Sixth Generation Chinese cinema, a culturally-subversive filmmaking movement founded post-Tiananmen Square; shooting documentaries, shorts, and features on shoestring budgets and digital video; casting non-actors.

Notable accolades: Jia has been the subject of continued adoration from the Venice Film Festival, which has awarded him the Netpac Award for Platform (2000), the Doc/It Award and an Open Prize for Dong (2006), the Venice Horizons Documentary Award for Wuyong (2007), and finally the Golden Lion itself (Still Life, 2006). In 2007, Still Life also landed Jia an Asian Film Award for Best Director, while the Los Angeles Film Critics Association named it Best Foreign Film the year it released stateside (2007).

Previous Cannes appearances: Jia has played in Competition twice (Unknown Pleasures, 2002; 24 City, 2008) and once in Un Certain Regard (I Wish I Knew, 2010). In 2007, he was the President of the Cinéfondation’s Short Film jury.

Film he’s bringing to Cannes: Tian Zhu Ding (A Touch of Sin), a multi-pronged and
interwoven narrative that follows four different stories from four different regions. The film is “a reflection on contemporary China: an economic giant slowly being eroded by violence,” starring Zhao Tao (Jia’s wife), Jiang Wu (Wu Xia), Wang Baoqiang (Lost in Thailand), and newcomer Luo Lanshan. The title riffs on A Touch of Zen, King Hu’s 1971 wuxia picture that was the first Chinese action film to win a prize at Cannes (the Technical Grand Prize).

Could it win the Palme? Superficially, it should be noted that Jia is the Venice Film Festival’s golden boy—but Cannes is not to be outdone. But with Taiwanese-American Ang Lee on the jury, Jia should be in good hands. Recently beating jury president Steven Spielberg in the Best Director Oscar race, the Life of Pi director certainly swings a big stick. That’s good news for Jia, as it could be up to Lee to argue for A Touch of Sin’s merit. Then again, if Jia’s latest is on the same level Venice claims he’s at (and the film is broadly appealing), we could be looking at China’s second Palme d’Or, after Chen Kaige’s 1993 Farewell My Concubine.

Why you should care: China’s Sixth Generation filmmakers are compelled to lash out against censorship and other such restrictions, which is why NPR described Jia Zhangke as perhaps “the most important filmmaker working in the world today”—and with the landscape of the film industry rapidly bending to the will of the Chinese markets, it seems critical for us to listen to their independent voices, whether or not A Touch of Sin is worthy of a Palme d’Or.

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Posted in Cannes, Cannes Originals, MCN Originals, Movie City News | Comments Off on Countdown To Cannes: Jia Zhangke

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

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I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

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