Posts Tagged ‘du haibin’

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

1428 tours the U.S. in October

Friday, August 27th, 2010

Following its highly successful premiere at the NY MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight series, Du Haibin’s acclaimed documentary 1428 will be screening in October at select US engagements.  Contact us to book a screening of this film at your festival, museum, or school.

Special Thanks to New York University and the Reel China Documentary Biennial, who are sponsoring Du’s visit.

1428 (dir. Du Haibin)

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5th
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Spurlock Museum
600 S. Gregory St.
Urbana, IL
(217) 333-9597
http://www.spurlock.uiuc.edu/education/calendar/2010_10.html#event5
With presentation on Chinese independent cinema by dGenerate’s Kevin Lee

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12th
Stanford University, California
Pigott Hall
Main Quad, Building 260, Room 113
Director Du Haibin to attend

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13th
SF Asia Society
Chinatown YMCA
855 Sacramento St.
San Francisco CA 94108
(415) 576-9622
http://www.ymcasf.org/chinatown/
Director Du Haibin to attend

FRIDAY-SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15
Cinema Studies Screening Room
721 Broadway, 6th floor
New York University, New York
Director Du Haibin to attend

This screening opens “Reel China, 5th Documentary Biennial at NYU”
Fri-Sunday: Oct 15-18
NYU Center for Religion and Media/Cinema Studies
http://crm.as.nyu.edu/object/crm.events.screenings

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16th
Maysles Cinema
343 Lenox Ave
Ground Fl., New York, NY 10027
(212) 582-6050
http://www.mayslesinstitute.org/cinema/calendar.html
Director Du Haibin to attend; Small reception to follow

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17th
*screening Umbrella*
Union Docs
322 Union Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11206
(718) 395-7902
http://www.uniondocs.org/
Master Class/Workshop led by Kevin Lee to follow
Director Du Haibin to attend

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19th

7:00pm-9:00pm
Harvard Film Archive
B04, Carpenter Center
24 Quincy Street
Cambridge MA 02138
Free and open to public
The screening will be followed by Q&A.  Discussants include Eugene Wang, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Professor of Asian Art; Jie Li, Harvard College Fellow; and Ying Qian, PhD candidate at Harvard EALC.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20th
7:00 PM
Yale University
Auditorium at Whitney Humanities Center
53 Wall Street
New Haven, CT
Director Du Haibin to attend

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21st
University of Chicago
5:30pm-7:30pm Screening
7:30pm-8:30pm Discussion and Q&A
Classics 21

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22nd
California Institute of the Arts
Film Today Class
Bijou Auditorium
Presentation by Thom Andersen and Bérénice Reynaud
24700 McBean Parkway Valencia CA 91355
(661)255.1050
Director Du Haibin to attend

Rice University
Room 301, Sewell Hall
6100 Main St.
Houston, TX 77005

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23rd
University of California, Santa Barbara
UCSB Multicultural Center
University Center room 1504
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-6050
(805) 893-8411
http://mcc.sa.ucsb.edu/ContactUs.aspx
Director Du Haibin to attend

Tags: ,
Posted in | 3 Comments »

Review of 1428 in Mubi Notebook

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

1428 (dir. Du Haibin)

In his coverage of the 2010 Los Angeles Film Festival for Mubi Notebook, Doug Cummings offers his take on Du Haibin’s 1428:

Du Haibin’s 1428 visits the aftermath of the devastating 2008 Sichuan earthquake, and charts the reactions and interpretations of the survivors, who wrestle with severe personal loss and confusion. Sorting through debris and often gushing at the camera—in a variety of angry, philosophical, and grief-stricken ways—the people of the region express their sentiments about the Chinese government, cosmology, the media, and anything else of immediate importance to them. Lush green mountains provide serene visual contrast to the individual lives scrambling amid the rubble, but… the film never falls into postcard pictorialism.

Read the full article at Mubi Notebook.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in dGenerate Titles, Film Reviews | No Comments »

Cinematic Earthquakes: Thoughts on Aftershock and 1428

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

By Isabella Tianzi Cai and Kevin B. Lee

Aftershock (dir. Feng Xiaogang)

The 1976 Tangshan Earthquake was one of the worst natural disasters in China’s history and believed to be the deadliest earthquake of the twentieth century. It had a magnitude of 7.8 and an estimated number of casualties between 212,419 to 719,000. Aftershock, director Feng Xiaogang’s dramatic feature about the Tangshan Earthquake, is set to be released July 22.  Budgeted at 138 million RMB (over $20 million US), it is primed to be the film event of the summer for Chinese cinemas. To behold such a big-budget spectacular about a historical tragedy raises several questions about the film, chiefly:  how it will recount the details of a historical tragedy while satisfying audiences as big-budget mass entertainment?

It is worth noting that the Censorship Board of the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television of China gave Aftershock virtually no obstacle in production and distribution. Such lack of interference is very rare within the Chinese film industry. Many board members are said to have cried during the screening of the film, feeling deeply touched by the story. Clearly it is a state-approved account of history, every word, sentiment and action reviewed and approved. What bearing this has on the merits of the film remains to be seen upon its release. For now, we can contrast Feng Xiaogang’s production with another recent film about a similar historic tragedy in China.
(article continues)
(more…)

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Chinese Cinema Today, dGenerate Titles | No Comments »

“An Eye Opening Dose of Reality:” Review of 1428

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

1428 (dir. Du Haibin)

By Isabella Tianzi Cai

Last month, Libertas Film Magazine (LFM), an online film magazine devoted to the voice of freedom in movies and popular culture, published a review of Du Haibin’s 1428, which screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival. The article is penned by Joe Bendel, who is a professor at NYU and also works in the book publishing industry. He originally published this article in his blog, and it was picked by LFM’s editor-in-chief among a series of reviews for provocative films at the LA Film Festival this year.

In the article, Bendel notes the unconventional yet pronounced cinematic style of Du Haibin as representative of a new generation of Chinese filmmakers.

“Stylistically compatible with China’s so-called D-Generation (D for Digital) filmmaking, Du eschews conventional documentary techniques, like formal interviews and voiceover narration.  Instead, he lets the camera roll, capturing the unfiltered reality of the quake’s aftermath at intervals of ten and two hundred ten days after the disaster.  It is not pretty.”

More after the break.

(more…)

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Film Reviews | No Comments »

1428 Picked as Los Angeles Film Festival’s “Best of the Fest”

Friday, June 18th, 2010

1428 (dir. Du Haibin)

Du Haibin’s award winning documentary 1428 has been selected as one of the must-sees playing at the Los Angeles Film Festival by the LA Weekly. LA Weekly film editor Karina Longworth ties the film’s depiction of disaster management with that the current oil spill devastating the Gulf Coast:

“We don’t know what to do at all.” That statement, spoken by a Chinese woman whose home has been demolished by the government without her permission, functions as the thesis of this episodic, verité-style documentary shot in the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Setting up a fascinating contrast between the “official” version of events captured by the state media and the rage and frustration of those struggling to rebuild far from photo ops, the theme of power brokers failing to serve people who can’t fathom self-sufficiency in the wake of unforeseen disaster hits eerily close to home.

1428 plays this Sunday and Monday at the Regal Cinemas at LA Live:

  • Sun. Jun 20, 1:45pm, Regal Cinemas #13
  • Mon. Jun 21, 8:00pm, Regal Cinemas #13

Tickets can be purchased at the Festival website.

Find out more about 1428.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in dGenerate Events, Film Reviews | 1 Comment »

Berenice Reynaud on 1428 – Screening at Los Angeles Film Festival

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

1428 (dir. Du Haibin)

The 2010 Los Angeles Film Festival will screen Du Haibin’s prize-winning documentary 1428 this Sunday and Monday at the Regal Cinemas at LA Live:

  • Sun. Jun 20, 1:45pm, Regal Cinemas #13
  • Mon. Jun 21, 8:00pm, Regal Cinemas #13

Tickets can be purchased at the Festival website.

In the current issue of the online magazine includes a lengthy appraisal by film scholar and Cal Arts professor Berenice Reynaud on 1428. It’s part of a much longer review of last fall’s Vancouver Film Festival. We’ve republished the passage concerning 1428 below:

—–

The shadow of lost sons haunts Du Haibin’s 1428, an award-winning (Orizzonti Award in Venice) documentary on the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people, rendered millions homeless and turned the Beichuan area into piles of rubble. Echoing Du’s previous works (such as Tielu yanxian [Along the Railway, 2001] San [Umbrella, 2007]), it is shot in hybrid cinéma-vérité style, with his subjects freely addressing and interacting with him. “Some people thought I was working for television. They would spontaneously stand in front of the camera, to tell me that the Chinese people were lucky. When Chinese people talk about the Communist party leaders, I have no way of sorting out what is true and what is false… Some also told me that is was a system of corrupt bureaucrats, but they said so because they had been wronged.”  We see an old lady staunchly defending the government on her way to collect an electric blanket, then switching to angry recriminations after it is refused to her. Other addresses are more intimate. While washing clothes in a brook, a woman describes how terribly she misses her dead children. A teenager looking for his missing brother asks Du “Are you filming this?” A butcher interjects: “You and I are from the same generation. You remember how terrible it was in 1979!”

Read more after the break.

(more…)

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in dGenerate Events, Film Reviews | No Comments »

Berenice Reynaud Reviews Four New Chinese Films

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

Queer China, 'Comrade China' (dir. Cui Zi'en)

The newest issue of the online film journal Senses of Cinema features lengthy reviews by film scholar and Cal Arts professor Berenice Reynaud on new films from Mainland China. Titled  “Men Won’t Cry – Traces of a Repressive Past,” Reynaud covers a dozen international titles that screened at last fall’s Vancouver International Film Festival, giving special attention to four new films from the Mainland, as well as the Hong Kong feature Night and Fog by Ann Hui. Her analysis is particularly astute at discerning issues of identity, gender, power and nationhood in the formal approaches taken by each film. The following are some choice excerpts, though readers are advised to read Reynaud’s appreciations in full:

(more…)

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Film Reviews | No Comments »

Controversial Earthquake Documentary Now on YouTube

Friday, June 4th, 2010

Buried (dir. Wang Libo)

Wang Libo’s film Buried was one of the prizewinners of the 2009 Beijing Documentary Film Festival. This probing documentary was made in the aftermath of the 2008 earthquake that shook Sichuan province (an event covered in detail by Du Haibin’s 1428, playing next month at the Los Angeles Film Festival). The film is now available in its entirety on YouTube; it’s embedded in its entirety on our site, following the break.

Instead of focusing directly at the Sichuan earthquake, Wang’s film looks back at controversies surrounding the 1976 Tangshan Earthquake that killed over 200,000 people. Using a range of expert testimonies, Wang builds a provocative argument that Chinese officials had significant information forewarning of an imminent earthquake, but did not take sufficient action to help prevent the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives. The implications of the film’s conclusions bear heavily on the Chinese government’s handling of both the Tangshan and the Sichuan earthquake. Buried leaves disturbing questions about the power and responsibility of government in disaster management.

Director’s Statement:

The 1976 Tangshan Earthquake left a lot of open questions. Before the earthquake, seismological personnel in Tangshan and quake experts in Beijing had already warned of an imminent quake. But in the end, more than 240,000 people had to pay with their lives, causing a shocking tragedy of massive proportions. Why did this happen? In the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake about 100,000 people were killed. Faced with terrible quakes, the human race repeats tragedy time and time again. It is terrible that people can only offer money and bland tears after the disaster – when better preparation could have saved lives. A nation has to courageously face its own weakness to remain hopeful.

- Wang Libo

Click through to watch the entire film, embedded on YouTube:

(more…)

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Chinese Cinema Today | No Comments »

Award-winning Earthquake Documentary 1428 to screen at Los Angeles Film Festival

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

1428 (dir. Du Haibin)

The 2010 Los Angeles Film Festival (June 17-27, 2010) has announced its lineup, and we’re happy to see that Du Haibin’s prize-winning documentary 1428 will be screening as part of the Festival’s International Showcase.

The festival’s program page has this to say about 1428:  “Filmmaker Du Haibin artfully hones in on the aftermath of the great Sichuan earthquake of 2008, capturing the intimate reactions of the survivors and the government’s response, both ten days after the tragedy and seven months later.”

The film will screen at the following dates and venues (to be confirmed; check the Festival website closer to the dates of the Festival).

  • Sun. Jun 20, 1:45pm, Regal Cinemas #13
  • Mon. Jun 21, 8:00pm, Regal Cinemas #13

Tickets will go on sale June 1 at the Festival website.

Find out more about 1428.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in dGenerate Events | 1 Comment »

“Alternative Realities:” China’s Digital Documentary Filmmakers

Monday, April 26th, 2010

1428 (dir. Du Haibin)

In the newest issue of RealTime Arts Magazine, there is a rousing article by Dan Edwards on the significance of digital independent filmmaking in China. Here’s the opening passage:

While China’s political system remains deeply authoritarian, the country’s overwhelming size and explosive growth have opened cavernous gaps in the government’s control of culture, through which a new generation of DV-wielding documentary filmmakers has climbed.

Edwards profiles films such as Hu Jie’s In Search of Lin Zhao’s Soul, Ou Ning’s Meishi Street, and Du Haibin’s 1428 (editor: The latter two are distributed by dGenerate Films). He also interviews three notable figures in the contemporary digital filmmaking scene: producer/journalist David Bandurski (Ghost Town), artist/filmmaker Ou Ning and filmmaker/journalist Hu Jie. Here are some choice quotes from each:

Bandurski: “I’ve never heard an independent filmmaker in China ask themselves, ‘Can I do this?… Independent filmmaking is the freest avenue of expression that exists in China today.”

Ou: “Before, history only had one version—by the Chinese Communist Party… Now with digital technology history has different versions.”

Hu: “I knew very little about the history of the 1950s and 60s… While making Lin Zhao I had the sense that I was feeling around in the dark. Then I found the door of history, opened it and walked through. There I found a lot of ridiculous, cruel stories that really shocked me, and that was the motivation to go further.”

Read the complete article at RealTime Arts.

Find out more about Meishi Street, 1428, and Ghost Town.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Chinese Cinema Today | No Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »