MCLC: DC Chinese Film Fest

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: fan zhang <fanzhangtiffany at gmail.com>
Subject: DC Chinese Film Fest
***********************************************************

[Please note in particular that list member Louisa Wei's film, Golden Gate
Girls, is opening the festival--Kirk Denton]

Never before seen: Understand Contemporary China at DC Chinese Film
Festival

WASHINGTON, Aug. 20, 2014 -- The 2014 DC Chinese Film Festival, held
September 4-7 in the Nation's Capital, will showcase over 60 outstanding
documentary, narrative, experimental, and animated films from 9 countries
and regions, all made by Chinese artists or about China. This will be the
first time the DC audience gets to watch so many never before seen Chinese
films on the big screen.
 
Full schedule and ticket information are available at

http://www.dccff.org/2014/schedule

 
"We're trying to bring in many unique voices that reflect contemporary
China. The festival is a rare opportunity to understand China from a fresh
perspective, one story at a time," said Echo Xie, Deputy Director of the
DC Chinese Film Festival. In addition to screening films, the festival
will host Q&A sessions with established filmmakers, experts and scholars
on current issues in Chinese society and the film industry. The festival
will also hold panel discussions on LGBT issues and film, gender gap
behind camera, environmental filmmaking, and independent film production.

 
The festival's opening film, Golden Gate Girls, is a tribute to Chinese
American film pioneer Esther Eng, an openly gay female director who
bridged different cultures with her filmmaking. This year's closing film,
The Silk Road of Pop, explores what it means to be a young Uyghur Muslim
in China and shows how music becomes a liberating element for a minority
trying to assert its identity.

 
Other highlights include Door God (winner of a 2014 Student Academy
Award), which follows a 7-year-old girl in a small village; My Dad is a
Rocker, a personal documentary about a first-generation Chinese rock
musician recovering from stroke; and Killing a Pig Without Mao, an
experimental piece, inspired by George Orwell, features a woman working in
a slaughterhouse in Mao's China.

 
In collaboration with the Smithsonian Freer Gallery, the Kissinger
Institute and the Center for Media and Social Impact, the Festival will
also present six spotlight screenings that are free and open to the
public. These award-winning titles include Stray Dog, Old Dog, Rock Me to
the Moon, Cop Shop II, I'm Here and New Beijing, New Marriage.

Founded in 2011, the DC Chinese Film Festival is a nonprofit organization
dedicated to discovering outstanding Chinese cinema from around the world
and to encouraging cultural diversity through film.
 
DC Chinese Film Festival Highlight Films：

Opening Film: Documentary Feature Golden Gate Girls
Time：Thursday September 4 8:00pm
Location：E ST Cinema(555 11th St NW, Washington, D.C. 20004)
Director: Louisa Wei
Between 1943 and 1949, Hong Kong’s first “directress” Esther Eng, a San
Francisco native and open lesbian, was the only woman directing
feature-length films in America. Drawing on the marks she left in both
Chinese and English press, Golden Gate Girl presents her life and the
tumultuous time in which she lived in a tribute to pioneer women
filmmakers working on both sides of the Pacific, and the courage with
which they crossed boundaries of language, culture, race and gender.

Closing Film: Silk Road of the Pop
Location: Naval Heritage Center (701 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, D.C.
20004)
Time: Saturday, September 7, 2014, 3:45pm

Director：Sameer Farooq
On the distant northwest edge of China lies Xinjiang, a vast region of
snow-capped mountains, barren deserts and gritty market cities. Here,
along the ancient Silk Road, music is one of the hottest commodities: it
is vibrant, infectious, and far-reaching, permeating every corner of the
province. Yet, around the music lies a troubling reality. Engaged in an
identity tug-of-war, the regional’s main population – the Uyghur Muslims –
are gradually watching their populations dwindle as they are engulfed by a
predominant Han Chinese settlement. One of the very few documentaries to
come out of Xinjiang, The Silk Road of Pop captures the challenges of a
minority group in China and the explosive music scene which results. The
Silk Road of Pop tells the story of Ay, a young music fan. Apprehensive
about her own life choices as a young Uyghur woman in China and curious
about the outside world, she turns to music for answers and is drawn to
musicians who mirror her struggles in their songs.

DCCFF Jury Introduction (Part)
Peggy Chiao （焦雄屏） is a film producer, writer and professor. She is
considered one of the important figures in shaping New Taiwan Cinema in
the 1980s and 1990s and a major force in series. 1996 marks the year when
Chiao founded Arc Light Films and began producingfilms which won
international accolade. Her filmography includes two Silver Bear Award
winners Beijing Bicycle (Grand Jury) and Betelnut Beauty (Best Director)
in the Berlin Film Festival, and many

Carma Hinton is a documentary filmmaker and Clarence J. Robinson Professor
of Visual Culture and Chinese Studies at George Mason University. She
worked with Richard Gordon in directing thirteen documentary films about
China. She has also taught at Swarthmore College, Wellesley College, MIT,
and Northeastern University and has lectured on Chinese culture, history,
and film around the world. Hinton has received several awards for her work
in film including the George Foster Peabody Award (twice), the John E.
O'Connor Film Award, the Best Social and Political Documentary and the
International Critics Prize (Banff Television Festival), as well as a
number of nominations for "best documentary feature". Her films have
received recognition in both the popular press and in academic journals.

Zhang Ling （张泠）, also known as Huang Xiaoxie, is a Chinese film scholar,
critic, columnist. She received her MA in Film Aesthetics at the Beijing
Film Academy, and is currently a Phd candidate at the Department of Cinema
and Media Studies at The University of Chicago. Her research interests
include film aesthetics, classical and contemporary film theories; film
sound and Chinese cinema, and her works have been published on major film
journals in both China and the United States.