MCLC: China Now: Independent Visions

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China Now: Independent Visions
List members may be interested in the touring version of Cinema On the Edge called China Now: Independent Visions, that I’m in the process of organizing now. Screenings start in San Francisco next week.
We’re looking for organizations around the world (universities, film festivals, art house cinemas, cinematheques) who might be interested in screening a selection from the 29 documentaries, fiction features and experimental shorts that we showed in New York City this summer.
Please write me at shellyk at mac.com if you would like to discuss screenings. Our new press release is attached, below.
- Shelly
Cinema on the Edge launches: CHINA NOW: INDEPENDENT VISIONS to showcase the best of recent Chinese independent cinema in an international tour
CHINA NOW: INDEPENDENT VISIONS international tour kicks off in San Francisco and London
San Francisco – November 19-22, 2015
London – December 2015
Canada: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver
USA: Chicago
Norway: Tromsø - 2016 
Following the successful and high profile series of 29 new Chinese independent films in New York City this past August and September, Cinema on the Edge is pleased to announce the launch of an international tour of the film series.
We’re calling the tour China Now: Independent Visions to celebrate the daring spirit and creative innovation of independent filmmakers and festival organizers in mainland China.
The films will be presented around the world, starting November 19th in San Francisco, and continuing through Summer 2016. Several of the films will now be brought to cities around the world for the first time, to be screened in some of the most enterprising museums and cinemas in major cities.
CHINA NOW: INDEPENDENT VISIONS will feature curatorial selections of outstanding recent Chinese independent cinema, showcasing the work of such acclaimed filmmakers as Ai Weiwei, Li Luo, Huang Ji, Zou Xueping and Yang Mingming. The series is organized and curated by Cinema on the Edge, a new collaboration formed by three of Chinese independent cinema’s most committed supporters: producer and distributor Karin Chien, critic and curator Shelly Kraicer, and filmmaker and anthropologist J.P. Sniadecki.
A complete listing of the 29 films, with brief descriptions, can be found here:
https://www.cinemaontheedge.com/films
CHINA NOW: INDEPENDENT VISIONS is confirmed for the following cities, with more cities to be announced soon.
San Francisco, USA
London, UK
Tromsø, Norway
Vancouver, Canada
Toronto, Canada
Montreal, Canada
Background:
CHINA NOW: INDEPENDENT VISIONS tour will be modelled on how independent cinema is exhibited in China today. Savvy programmers, producers, and filmmakers have taken to organizing informal networks of screenings to get their works into distribution. A package of new indie films are circulated to an ad hoc collection of art galleries, campus screening clubs, and enterprising independent art spaces, through China’s first, second, and third tier cities, finding local audiences through a new model of grassroots, artisanal exhibition circuits.
That’s what we propose to do with CHINA NOW: INDEPENDENT VISIONS. We are making available the complete package of 29 Cinema On The Edge curated films to venues around the world, and working with their curators and programmers to tailor a selection suitable to each venue.
The films we are bringing to audiences around the world are a collection of illuminating documentaries, brilliant shorts, and spellbinding fiction features from the last four years of Chinese independent cinema. Independent Chinese filmmakers are inventing new ways of mobilizing, adapting, and innovating film language under pressure of the incredibly rapid and fundamental changes Chinese society is undergoing. Intensely engaged meta-journalism and alternative history-making,  genre-defying performance/documentary art hybrid work; visually playful experimentalism: all interrogate how cinema art can and should stand against the real, all stretch cinema art under the pressure of seemingly un-representable new Chinese realities, and all invent images and sounds that try to keep up with a present that is changing before our eyes, one that is shaping our own future at the same time.
 “The independent films coming out of China continue to be at the forefront of aesthetic cinematic innovation,” says Shelly Kraicer, a veteran critic and curator of Chinese cinema. “Responding to the crazy, unpredictable changes in Chinese society and politics, these fearless directors are challenged to create sounds and images that stretch and enrich our imaginations.”
Films in the series include:
·      Artist Ai Wei Wei’s bold investigative documentary Ping’an Yueqing
·      The lushly photographed award-­winning feature Emperor Visits the Hell by Li Luo
·      The unique musical documentary People’s Park by J.P. Sniadecki and Libbie Cohn
·      Bold works by a new generation of Chinese women filmmakers, including Yang Mingming (Female Directors ) and Wen Hui (Listening to Third Grandmother’s Stories )
·      Eye­-opening documentaries revealing China’s hidden past and present: Spark, Stratum I: The Visitors , Satiated Village and I Want To Be a People's Representative
·      Programs showcasing contemporary China’s most outstanding works of experimental and animated filmmaking
COMPLETE LISTING: https://www.cinemaontheedge.com/films
“These films have a lot to show us, not only about China, but about storytelling freed from marketplace demands,” says Karin Chien, president and founder of dGenerate Films, a leading distributor of Chinese independent film. “These groundbreaking films deserve an audience, so we are honored to bring these films and filmmakers to New York City. Many kudos go to the bold programmers across the world for embracing these films.”
Press contacts: Shelly Kraicer: email: shellyk at mac.com
Karin Chien: email: karinc at gmail.com; phone: +1917­209­9602
by denton.2 at osu.edu on November 11, 2015
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