- Programme features 80 films, free exhibitions and guests including Chen Kaige, Johnnie To and Jackie Chan -
- Tickets on sale May 21 at 10 a.m. for TIFF Members, May 27 at 10 a.m. for non-members -
Noah Cowan, Artistic Director, TIFF Bell Lightbox, announced today details for a comprehensive exploration of Chinese film, art and culture. A Century of Chinese Cinema features a major film retrospective of over 80 titles, sessions with some of the biggest names in Chinese cinema, and a free exhibition featuring two internationally acclaimed visual artists. The flagship programme of the summer season, A Century of Chinese Cinema runs from June 5 to August 11, 2013.
"A Century of Chinese Cinema exemplifies TIFF's vision to foster new relationships and build bridges of cultural exchange," said Piers Handling, Director and CEO of TIFF. "If we are, indeed, living in the Chinese Century, it is essential that we attempt to understand what that entails. There is no better way to do so than through film, which encourages cross-cultural understanding in our city and beyond."
"The history, legacy and trajectory of Chinese film has been underrepresented in the global cinematic story, and as a leader in creative and cultural discovery through film, TIFF Bell Lightbox is the perfect setting for A Century of Chinese Cinema," said Noah Cowan, Artistic Director, TIFF Bell Lightbox. "With Chinese cinema in the international spotlight, an examination of the history and development of the region's amazing artistic output is long overdue. The unprecedented scale and depth of this programme should help make up for that lost time."
Cinephiles and Sinophiles alike will find much to dig into over the course of A Century of Chinese Cinema. The programme is the result of an unprecedented partnership with the China Film Archive, the Hong Kong Film Archive and the Chinese Taipei Film Archive. The films, many of which are new prints, digital restorations or archival 35mm prints - and several of which have never before been seen in North America - trace the shared cultural and historical connections between the cinemas of the Mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and offer a range cinematic options for all tastes. From classics of the silent era (Laborer's Love, Red Heroine) to the Golden Age (The Goddess, Spring In A Small Town); post-1949 content (Unfinished Comedy, The Winter) to the rise of genre films (A Better Tomorrow, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin); new post-Cultural Revolution voices (Red Sorghum, Boat People) as well as contemporary masters (In the Mood for Love; Still Life).
A Century Of Chinese Cinema is not only a film programme. TIFF’s continued championing of the visual arts marks yet another milestone with a major new commission by the acclaimed visual artist Yang Fudong, presented with two new installations by leading cinematographer Christopher Doyle. Admission to the exhibition is free. Yang Fudong's debut feature film, An Estranged Paradise, will also be screened as part of the TIFF Cinematheque Free Screen series and Christopher Doyle will present a special performance as part of the show's opening weekend. Please see accompanying press release for more details.
A veritable who's who of Chinese cinema will descend on TIFF Bell Lightbox over the course of the series, starting with the Opening Night festivities on June 6 when renowned director Chen Kaige introduces his Palme d'Or-winning masterpiece, Farewell My Concubine. Chen will also introduce his landmark debut, Yellow Earth, as well as take part in our In Conversation With… programme to discuss his filmmaking career. Jackie Chan returns to Toronto to share - and introduce - works from his past (Drunken Master I and The Legend of Drunken Master, Police Story) and future (a preview of the upcoming Police Story 2013). Cinematographer Christopher Doyle introduces the beloved Chungking Express as well as Comrades: Almost a Love Story; producer-director Johnnie To walks audiences through his action-packed career for an In Conversation With… appearance, and introduces his films Election and Election II; and Nansun Shi, one of Asia's most respected producers, shares her industry experience and her thoughts on two much-loved genre films A Better Tomorrow and A Chinese Ghost Story. Distinguished scholar David Bordwell discusses martial arts film, and actresses Nora Miao and Ivy Ling Po introduce, respectively, Fist of Fury and The Love Eterne, films in which they starred. TIFF's own Noah Cowan will introduce Spring in a Small Town, often cited as the greatest Chinese film ever made.
FILM PROGRAMME AND GUEST HIGHLIGHTS
The Century of Chinese Cinema's opening night programme features a screening of Farewell My Concubine, one of the most popular Chinese films of all time, with opening remarks by director Chen Kaige.
Highlights of the 80-plus-strong film programme include a wide range of offerings under five broad themes:
The Golden Age was defined by the classics of Shanghai cinema, and the work of the tragically short-lived Greta Garbo of China, Ruan Lingyu. The period, running through the 1930s and 1940s, was known not only for the den-of-iniquity and East-meets-West reputation of cosmopolitan Shanghai, but also the challenges of a nation bordering on anarchy. Signature films of the period include The Goddess (Wu Yonggang, 1934) and Spring in a Small Town (Fei Mu, 1948; introduced by TIFF Bell Lightbox Artistic Director Noah Cowan).
A New China picks up in the wake of the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. The cinematic output of the new nation saw filmmakers wrestle with the volatile years leading up to the Cultural Revolution. Major films of the era included sweeping patriotic epics, such as Red Detachment of Women (Xie Jin, 1961), alongside gritty war films such as Shangrao Concentration Camp (Sha Meng, 1951), and piercing satires such as the recently rediscovered Unfinished Comedy (Lu Ban, 1957). Meanwhile, an influx of Mainland talent launched a new era in Hong Kong and Taiwan, with such works as the social drama In the Face of Demolition (Li Tie, 1953), and the hit romance, The Winter (Li Han-hsiang, 1969).
Swordsmen, Gangsters and Ghosts: The Evolution of Chinese Genre Cinema highlights the genre films that first brought Chinese cinema to the international stage, including the wuxia (swordplay) films that date back to China's earliest filmmaking days. The genre came alive again in the late 1940s with Wong Fei-hung: The Whip That Smacks the Candle (Wu Pang, 1949), and flourished through the 1960s and 1970s, with films like A Touch of Zen (King Hu, 1969), and Bruce Lee's international ascendance in Fist of Fury (Lo Wei, 1972), while Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000) brought a renewed international attention to martial-arts film in the new millennium. Meanwhile, guns and gangsters became a Hong Kong trademark, beginning with the long-neglected masterpiece, The Story of a Discharged Prisoner (Patrick Lung Kong, 1967), which was remade as John Woo's landmark 1986 A Better Tomorrow. More recently, a new generation has reinvigorated the genre with films like Infernal Affairs (Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, 2002).
New Waves looks at the moment when Chinese film dominated the international art- film scene. The work ranges from the Hong Kong New Wave exemplified by Ann Hui (Boat People, 1982) and Tsui Hark (Peking Opera Blues, 1986); to the new generation of Taiwanese masters led by Hou Hsiao-hsien (A City of Sadness, 1989) and Edward Yang (A Brighter Summer Day, 1991); and the Mainland's Fifth Generation directors, including Zhang Junzhao (One and Eight, 1983) and Chen Kaige (Yellow Earth, 1984; Farewell My Concubine, 1993).
In the lead-up to the new millennium, a series of sexy, exciting and formally daring new films built on the New Waves' innovations and sparked a renewed global interest in Chinese cinema. The signature films of New Directions include Chungking Express (Wong Kar- wai, 1994), Vive L'Amour (Tsai Ming-liang, 1994) and The Missing Gun (Lu Chuan, 2002).
Complementing the film programme are an exciting slate of prestigious guests, talks and roundtable discussions. For our In Conversation With… series, TIFF Bell Lightbox Artistic Director Noah Cowan sits down with Mainland director Chen Kaige (June 7 at 8 p.m.) as well as Hong Kong action director Johnnie To (July 13 at 4 p.m.). International superstar Jackie Chan introduces three of his best films: Drunken Master (June 12 at 6 p.m.) and The Legend of Drunken Master (June 12 at 9 p.m.) and Police Story (June 13 at 6 p.m.). Audiences will also get a glimpse of Chan's Police Story 2013 when he unveils a trailer for the upcoming film.
Other programming highlights include: a roundtable discussion on the Fourth and Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers with a key filmmaker from each era (Xie Fei and Chen Kaige, respectively) as well as Chen Biqiang, Senior Research Fellow at the China Film Archive and scholar Bart Testa. Film scholar David Bordwell speaks on the dynamic language of martial-arts cinema and joins fellow scholar James Udden in a discussion about the films of Hou Hsiao-hsien; scholar Bart Testa looks at Ann Hui's Boat People (1982); Hong Kong Film Archive programmer Winnie Fu and film scholar Sam Ho introduce the legendary Wong Fei-hung: The Whip That Smacks the Candle; and director Xie Fei and China Film Archive Director Fu Hongxing introduce Xie's films The Women from the Lake of Scented Souls and Black Snow. Buried Treasures of Chinese Silent Cinema will showcase three of the earliest Chinese films in existence alongside a roundtable discussion: Laborer's Love (Zhang Shichuan, 1922), Romance of the Western Chamber (Hou Yao, 1927) and Red Heroine (Wen Yimin, 1929).
A commemorative iBook will be produced in the fall, featuring a multimedia look back at A Century of Chinese Cinema.
EXHIBITION
An important component of the programme is the main gallery exhibition, which runs from June 7 to August 11 in an exhibition curated by TIFF's Noah Cowan and Shanghai-based curator Davide Quadrio. Yang Fudong's New Women, a 5-channel video installation, is a new commission from the internationally-renowned visual artist. The work is inspired by the decadent atmosphere of Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s, a period that has been captured in some of the best-loved Chinese films (several of which are a part of the A Century of Chinese Cinema programme) and remains influential among Chinese artists - and filmmakers in particular - today. The work examines the East-meets-West blend for which Shanghai was (in)famous via the nude form and examines how women, and ideas about women, have represented China's search for modernity over the past hundred years. As a part of the TIFF Cinematheque Free Screen series, our continuing free series dedicated to experimental film and video works, we will also be presenting Yang Fudong's first feature film, An Estranged Paradise in a new 35mm print. Yang Fudong is represented by ShanghART in Shanghai and Marian Goodman Gallery in New York and Paris.
Christopher Doyle is best known as one of the world's great cinematographers (Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love), but, in addition to acting, directing and writing, he is also an accomplished visual artist. Away With Words is a long-term project exploring the nature of wordless language, an attempt to reconcile and complicate his residence in a space between cultures and languages. The project is comprised of two multi-channel installations, one of which looks at the five Chinese elements (fire, earth, air, water, wood) through footage collected from a variety of sources including Doyle's own film work, while the other examines Doyle's multiple identities: Christopher Doyle, his given name, and Du-Ke Feng, the Chinese name under which he often works, interview and argue with one another on separate screens - Doyle calls it "a kind of Cinematographer's Fight Club." Doyle will also present a live performance of Away With Words (June 8 at 10 p.m.), extending the work into a third dimension.
The public is invited to join us for a complimentary tour of the exhibition. These 30-minute guided tours start June 9 and run weekly on Thursdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. in the main gallery. Tours will also be offered in Cantonese and Mandarin every Sunday at 12 p.m.
FULL FILM PROGRAMME (CURRENT AS OF MAY 6, 2013; ADDITIONAL TITLES TO BE ANNOUNCED)
THE GOLDEN AGE
Spring Silkworms (Cheng Bugao, 1933)
The Goddess (Wu Yonggang, 1934)
New Women (Cai Chusheng, 1935)
The Big Road (Sun Yu, 1935)
Crossroads (Shen Xiling, 1937)
Song at Midnight (Ma-Xu Weibang, 1937)
Street Angel (Yuan Muzhi, 1937)
The Spring River Flows East I & II (Cai Chusheng/Zheng Junli, 1947)
Spring in a Small Town (Fei Mu, 1948)
A NEW CHINA
This Life of Mine (Shi Hui, 1950)
Shangrao Concentration Camp (Sha Meng, 1951)
In the Face of Demolition (Li Tie, 1953)
Parents' Hearts (Chun Kim, 1955)
New Year's Sacrifice (Sang Hu, 1956)
Unfinished Comedy (Lu Ban, 1957)
Red Detachment of Women (Xie Jin, 1961)
Li Shuangshuang (Lu Ren, 1962)
The Love Eterne (Li Han-hsiang, 1963)
Two Stage Sisters (Xie Jin, 1964)
The East Is Red (Wang Ping, 1965)
Red Crag: Life in Eternal Flame (Shui Hua, 1965)
The Arch (Cecile Tang, 1968)
The Winter (Li Han-hsiang, 1969) Execution in Autumn (Lee Hsing, 1972) China Behind (Cecile Tang, 1974)
SWORDSMEN, GANGSTERS AND GHOSTS: THE EVOLUTION OF CHINESE GENRE CINEMA
Wong Fei-hung: The Whip That Smacks the Candle (Wu Pang, 1949)
One-Armed Swordsman (Chang Cheh, 1967)
The Story of a Discharged Prisoner (Patrick Lung Kong, 1967)
A Touch of Zen (King Hu, 1971)
Fist of Fury (Lo Wei, 1972)
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (Lau Kar-leung, 1978)
Drunken Master (Yuen Woo-ping, 1978)
Long Arm of the Law (Johnny Mak, 1984)
Police Story (Jackie Chan, 1985)
A Better Tomorrow (John Woo, 1986)
A Chinese Ghost Story (Ching Siu-tung, 1987)
Once Upon a Time in China, Once Upon a Time in China Part II (Tsui Hark, 1991, 1992)
A Chinese Odyssey: Part I & II (Jeff Lau, 1994)
The Legend of Drunken Master (Lau Kar-Leung, 1994)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000)
Hero (Zhang Yimou, 2002)
Infernal Affairs (Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, 2002)
Election (Johnnie To, 2005)
Election 2 (Johnnie To, 2005)
The Banquet (Feng Xiaogang, 2006)
NEW WAVES
Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind (Tsui Hark, 1980)
The Spooky Bunch (Ann Hui, 1980)
Boat People (Ann Hui, 1982)
One and Eight (Zhang Junzhao, 1983)
Yellow Earth (Chen Kaige, 1984)
The Black Cannon Incident (Hu Jianxin, 1985)
Sacrificed Youth (Zhang Nuanxin, 1985)
The Time to Live and the Time to Die (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1985)
The Horse Thief (Tian Zhuangzhuang)
The Old Well (Wu Tianming, 1986) Peking Opera Blues (Tsui Hark, 1986) The Terrorizers (Edward Yang, 1986) King of the Children (Chen Kaige, 1987) Red Sorghum (Zhang Yimou, 1987)
A City of Sadness (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1989)
Black Snow (Xie Fei, 1990)
Bloody Morning (Li Shaohong, 1990)
A Brighter Summer Day (Edward Yang, 1991) Center Stage/Actress (Stanley Kwan, 1992) The Peach Blossom Land (Stan Lai, 1992)
The Story of Qiu Ju (Zhang Yimou, 1992)
Farewell My Concubine (Chen Kaige, 1993)
The Women from the Lake of Scented Souls (Xie Fei, 1993)
A Borrowed Life (Wu Nien-jen, 1994)
NEW DIRECTIONS
Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai, 1994)
Vive L'Amour (Tsai Ming-liang, 1994)
Comrades: Almost a Love Story (Peter Chan, 1996)
Made in Hong Kong (Fruit Chan, 1997)
In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000)
The Missing Gun (Lu Chuan, 2002) Kekexili: Mountain Patrol (Lu Chuan, 2004) Still Life (Jia Zhangke, 2006)
For information on the films, guests and events that comprise A Century of Chinese Cinema visit tiff.net/century. Tickets for the film programmes go on sale May 21 at 10 a.m. for TIFF Members and May 27 at 10 a.m. for non-members. Ticket packages are available: Martial Arts & Gangsters 6-Pack and Melodrama and New Women 6-Pack.
Admission to the exhibition is free.
TIFF BELL LIGHTBOX GALLERIES TO EXHIBIT MAJOR NEW COMMISSIONS BY YANG FUDONG AND CHRISTOPHER DOYLE
Toronto – Noah Cowan, Artistic Director, TIFF Bell Lightbox, announced today details of A Century of Chinese Cinema, the flagship programme of TIFF’s summer season. A comprehensive exploration of Chinese film, art and culture, the programme features a major exhibition showcasing the work of leading international visual artist/filmmaker Yang Fudong and famed cinematographer Christopher Doyle. The free exhibitions run from June 7 to August 11, 2013. In addition, a major film retrospective of over 80 titles and onstage sessions with some of the biggest names in Chinese cinema trace the shared cultural and historical connections between the cinemas of the Mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
“Chinese cinema is a dynamic, living thing. It issues from multiple cities, multiple genres and from multiple art forms,” said Cowan. “We are grateful that Yang Fudong and Christopher Doyle have created these extraordinary new works for this exhibition. These two artists base their practice in film and cinema history and not only represent Chinese cinema’s most exciting contemporary developments, but also its future.”
Two concurrent exhibitions will take place at TIFF Bell Lightbox. In the main gallery, TIFF has commissioned New Women, a major new installation by Yang Fudong, one of Mainland China’s leading artists, inspired by 1930s Shanghai cinema. The five-screen work has been curated by TIFF’s Noah Cowan and Shanghai-based curator Davide Quadrio. In the TIFF Bell Lightbox Atrium, Away With Words, a two-part installation by Christopher Doyle, draws from recent Hong Kong cinema history and was curated by Cowan.
One of the most important members of the contemporary Chinese art scene, Shanghai-based Yang Fudong was educated in painting but moved to photography and film in the late nineties and has exhibited in some of the most important venues around the world. Yang’s work epitomizes the tension between China’s recent and rapid modernization and its traditional values and culture, and is informed equally by traditional Chinese painting and by both avant-garde filmmaking and film noir. Yang first came to the Western art world’s attention at Documenta XI in 2002 and the Venice Biennale in 2003 with his debut film, An Estranged Paradise, which will screen as part of the TIFF Cinematheque Free Screen series on June 5 at 7 p.m. in a new 35mm print. Referencing a range of influences from Godard to Jarmusch to 1920s and 1930s Shanghai films, it established the artist as an important new voice of not only his own nation but of the global artistic scene.
Yang’s interest in classic Shanghai film continues with the commission New Women. The five-channel video installation is inspired by the decadence of Shanghai’s swinging 1920s and 1930s, a period that has been captured in some of the best-loved Chinese films – several of which are screen in the A Century of Chinese Cinema programme. That era was defined by “hai pai,” the East-meets-West culture of the city, and the associated imagery remains influential among Chinese artists today. New Women takes a hai-pai approach to examine how women, and ideas about women, have represented China’s search for modernity over the past century. According to Yang Fudong, New Women was informed by An Estranged Paradise, his debut feature film. Yang Fudong is represented by ShanghART in Shanghai and by Marian Goodman Gallery in Paris and New York.
The Australian-born and long-time Hong Kong-based Christopher Doyle is best known as one of the world’s great cinematographers; his work on films including Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love and Hero has not only brought awards and accolades, but signaled new directions for cinematography in general. The public will have many opportunities to enjoy Doyle’s film work over the course of A Century of Chinese Cinema, but will also have a rare chance to experience Doyle’s visual art.
Away With Words is a long-term project exploring the nature of wordless language, an attempt to reconcile and complicate Doyle’s residence in a space between cultures and languages. The project is comprised of two multi-channel installations. One installation looks at the five Chinese elements (fire, earth, air, water, wood) through footage collected from a variety of sources including films Doyle has shot. In the other installation, Doyle examines his multiple identities: Christopher Doyle, his given name, and Du-ke Feng, the Chinese name under which he often works, interview one another on separate screens – Doyle calls it “a kind of Cinematographer's Fight Club” – while a third screen showcases a collage borrowed from several sources. Doyle will also present a free live performance of Away With Words on June 8 at 10 p.m., expanding the work into a third iteration.
The public is invited to join us for a complimentary tour of the exhibition. These 30-minute guided tours start June 9 and run weekly on Thursdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. in the main gallery. Tours will also be offered in Cantonese and Mandarin every Sunday at 12 p.m.
For information on the films, gallery hours, guests and events that comprise A Century of Chinese Cinema visit tiff.net/century.
Admission to the exhibition is free.
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ABOUT TIFF
TIFF is a charitable cultural organization whose mission is to transform the way people see the world through film. An international leader in film culture, TIFF projects include the annual Toronto International Film Festival in September; TIFF Bell Lightbox, which features five cinemas, major exhibitions, and learning and entertainment facilities; and innovative national distribution program Film Circuit. The organization generates an annual economic impact of $170 million CAD. TIFF Bell Lightbox is generously supported by contributors including Founding Sponsor Bell, the Province of Ontario, the Government of Canada, the City of Toronto, the Reitman family (Ivan Reitman, Agi Mandel and Susan Michaels), The Daniels Corporation and RBC. For more information, visit tiff.net.
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