Special Program on Jun 3 (SUN)
Filmmaker in Focus: Guo Xiaolu Masterclass: Between Literature and Cinema
Time:
June.3 (SUN) 16:00-18:00
Venue:
UCCA Art Cinema

Organized by:
Ullens Center For Contemporary Art Art Cinema
Supported by:
Swiss Embassy
Guests:
Guo Xiaolu (director)
Ticketing:
Free Entry

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UCCA Art Cinema launched a new series this year, Filmmaker in Focus, presenting established contemporary Chinese filmmaker's work with full retrospective and holding discussion with filmmaker in person.

A Zhe-Jiang born filmmaker and novelist, Guo Xiaolu will be on the spotlight this month. Her most well know films are: SHE, A CHINESE which won Golden Leopard award in Locarno film festival 2009. ONCE UPON A TIME PROLETARIAN was her documentary film which selected for Venice official competition and Toronto film festival.

She is working as novelist and filmmaker at the same time. Between Literature and Cinema, she created a whole new image world. This series will screen 6 feature films and 4 short films, first time to show her work with full retrospective.
She will come to UCCA to present this series with her recent film UFO IN HER EYES (nationwide premiere) on the opening night. Also, a master class with her will be arranged during this programme.

*Online Ticketing
Please visit: http://e.mosh.cn/11705

A Zhe-Jiang born filmmaker and novelist. She published her poetry in her teenager years and went to Beijing Film Academy and UK's National Film and TV School to study film. Her most well know films are: SHE, A CHINESE which won Golden Leopard award in Locarno film festival 2009, as well as the Best Film in New York Asian Film Festival. ONCE UPON A TIME PROLETARIAN was her documentary film which selected for Venice official competition and Toronto film festival. UFO IN HER EYES is her most recent film which premiered in Toronto film festival 2011. Her novels include A CONCISE CHINESE ENGLISH DICTIONARY FOR LOVERS, which translated into 25 languages and shortlisted for Orange Prize. TWENTY FRAGMENTS OF A RAVENOUS YOUTH was also well translated, and nominated for many international literary prize.

Filmographies
UFO in Her Eyes (2011)
She, A Chinese (2009)
Three Short Films About Home (2009)
Once Upon A Time Proletarian (2009)
We Went To Wondeland (2008)
An Archeologist’s Sunday (2008)
How Is Your Fish Today? (2006)
Address Unknown (2006)
The Concrete Revolution (2004)
Far And Near (2003)

6:30pm, May 27
Opening Screening: UFO in Her Eyes Q&A with director Guo Xiaolu and actress Shi Ke
Q&A with Guo Xiaolu
7:00pm, May 30
Once Upon a Time Proletarian
7:00pm, May 31
She, a Chinese
7:00pm, June 1
The Concrete Revolution Shorts：
Far and Near, An Archeologist's Sunday, Address Unknown, Three Short Films About Home
4:00pm-6:00pm , June 3
Guo Xiaolu masterclass: Between Literature and Cinema
7:00pm, June 3
She, a Chinese Q&A with actress Huanglu
7:00pm, June 6
How is Your Fish Today?
7:00pm, June 7
We Went to Wonderland
7:00pm, June 8
Once Upon a Time Proletarian
4:30pm, June 9
How is Your Fish Today? Q&A with screenwriter & actor Raohui
7:00pm, June 9
UFO in Her Eyes
7:00pm, June 10
We Went to Wonderland

UFO in Her Eyes (2011)
Director: Guo Xiaolu
Cast: Shi Ke/Udo Kier
Genre: Fiction feature
Region: Germany
Language: Mandarin
Running time: 110min
Year of Production: 2011

Synopsis:
A successful screen adaptation of a novel by renown Chinese writer, Xiaolu Guo, UFO in her Eyes is a hyper-vivid portrait of chaotic contemporary Chinese society. Has a flying saucer come to disrupt life in a village or is it simply the fantasy of an illiterate, attractive single lady? Starring Udo Kier.

Awards:
Toronto Film Festival TIFF 2011

SHE, A CHINESE
Chinese Title: Zhong Guo Gu Niang
English Title: She, A Chinese
Director: Guo Xiaolu
Cast: Huang Lu / Geoffrey Hutchings / Chris Ryman
Genre: Fiction feature
Region: UK/France/Germany
Language: Mandarin/English
Running time: 103min
Year of Production: 2009

Synopsis:
Novelist and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo continues her examination of modern China via this film, in which Li Mei (Lu Huang, pictured), who starts off never having travelled more than five miles from home, winds up in London via a series of unpleasant events. En route, she learns the many ways in which a pretty Chinese girl can be objectified – as a woman, an Oriental, a foreigner – and the general untrustworthiness of most men.

Festivals & Awards
GOLDEN LEOPARD - Locarno Film Festival 2009
Montblanc Scriptwriting Award, Hamburg Film Festival 2009
Official Selection, Toronto & Pusan Film Festivals 2009

HOW IS YOUR FISH TODAY?

Chinese Title: Jin Tian De Yu Zen Me Yang?
English Title: How Is Your Fish Today?
Director: Guo Xiaolu
Screenplay: Guo Xiaolu, Rao Hui
Cast: Guo Xiaolu, Rao Hui
Genre: Feature fiction
Region: UK
Language: Mandarin
Running Time: 83min
Year of Production: 2006
Synopsis
A young man in southern China has killed his lover. He starts a lonely escape across the whole country towards his land of wonder, a snowy village at the northern border.
Sitting at his desk in Beijing, a scriptwriter is writing that man’s story. It is through his characters that his life gains its weight, meaning and freedom.
His imagination blurs the boundaries between reality and fiction.
The snowy village lies on the quiet border between China and Russia. Old villagers fish under the ice, school children study English text about America. They endure the long winter nights waiting for the sun to come back.
When the scriptwriter arrives in that mysterious village, he meets his own fictional character, lying on the frozen river at the border, covered in snow.
Two men contemplate the icy landscape. One wants to cross the border to see the other side of the world. The other longs to head back to his hometown, which he left so many years ago.
Festivals & Awards
GRAND JURY PRIZE FOR BEST FEATURE FICTION FILM,
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN FILM FESTIVAL, CRETEIL / PARIS 2007
OFFICIAL SELECTION, SUNDANCE 2007
SPECIAL MENTION, ROTTERDAM FILM FESTIVAL 2007 - NETPAC TIGER AWARDS
SPECIAL MENTION, PESARO FILM FESTIVAL 2007 - LINO MICCICHÈ AWARD
SPECIAL MENTION, FRIBOURG INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2007 - JURY PRIZE

ONCE UPON A TIME PROLETARIAN

Chinese Title: Wo Men Ceng Jing De Wu Chan Zhe
English Title: Once Upon A Time Proletarian
Director: Guo Xiaolu
Genre: Documentary
Region: China/UK
Language: Mandarin
Running Time: 75min
Year of Production: 2009

Synopsis
A subjective anatomy of contemporary China in the post Marxist era. With a dark, poetic and existentialist visual mind, the film shows people from different classes living in modern Chinese society.
12 chapters explore facets of Chinese social and political landscape. Stories of yearning, loss and dreams unfold: an old peasant who has lost his land, a millionaire chatting with his mate in a stock exchange office, a young migrant who came to the city to wash cars, a weapon factory worker who wishes Mao was still alive to save the country, a successful hotel owner who praises the government’s liberal economy policies, and young kids whose dream is to become famous western artists…
Lead by metaphoric comical and absurd children stories, each chapter conveys themes of trivial reality, despaired heart, lonesome youth, and uncertain future. This film contemplates a vast and complex society whose citizens are searching for new beliefs and identities after the country’s great revolutionary days, and demonstrates how the individual is conflicting with his time and history.

Festivals & Awards
GRAND PRIX DE GENEVE 2011
VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2009 - ORIZZONTI
OFFICIAL SELECTION, TORONTO & PUSAN FILM FESTIVALS 2009

WE WENT TO WONDERLAND

Chinese Title: Leng Ku Xian Jing
English Title: We Went To Wondeland
Director: Guo Xiaolu
Genre: Documentary.
Region: UK
Language: English/Mandarin
Running Time: 76min
Year of Production: 2008
Long synopsis
A Chinese man who has lost his voice after an operation for cancer now communicates through the written word. Despite his age and frail health, he has always dreamed of visiting Europe. Now he and his delightfully pragmatic wife embark on a long awaited great adventure, first stopping at their daughter's home in England and continuing on to the Continent. There are some amusing encounters along the way, as well as some surprising revelations about the husband. In minute detail director Xiaolu Guo follows the couple on their adventure, with subtle digs at the consequences of globalization as well as capturing the confusion of the pair as they confront an alien culture for which they have few reference points.

Festivals & Awards
Special Jury Award, Cinesdelsur Film Festival Granada 2008
New Directors/New Films 2008, MoMa New-York
Rotterdam International Film Festival 2008
Bafici Buenos Aires Film Festival 2008
Edinburgh Film Festival EIFF 2008

THE CONCRETE REVOLUTION

Chinese Title: Xian Ru Cheng Shi De Rou Ti
English Title: The Concrete Revolution
Director: Guo Xiaolu
Genre: Documentary.
Region: UK
Language: English/Mandarin
Running Time: 62min
Year of Production: 2004
Long synopsis
Part objective documentary, part personal essay, on the surface this film charts the transformation of Beijing. In order to present a modern glossy face to the world, one where shiny new buildings and icons of western consumerism are rapidly built and pushed to the foreground, the Chinese Government prefers to hide in the background the hardship of the people constructing the new image, and that of the disappearing world of its culture-carrying elders.
Electing to focus beneath the facade, this intelligent and important work bravely exposes the unseen changes in values and the social cost being payed, especially those of the peasant construction workers of the new China. Told through the contrast of individual's stories with elements of retrospective context, the film functions as a feminine poem on a macho subject using a clever mix of colour and black & white film, stills, snippets of media newsflash and even quotes and songs from Maoist China.

Festivals & Awards
Grand Prix - international human rights film festival, Paris 2005
Special Jury Prize - EBS international documentary film festival, Seoul 2005
FAR AND NEAR

Chinese Title: Yuan Yu Jin
English Title: Far And Near
Director/ Writer: Guo Xiaolu
Genre: Documentary/ Shot
Region: UK
Language: English/Mandarin
Running Time: 23min
Year of Production: 2003
Long synopsis
Leaving her country for the first time, a young Chinese writer wanders on a wild mountain in Wales. Through the beautiful and empty landscape and the people she meets she enters a dreamlike world where memories of life in rapidly developing Beijing, and a childhood in a poor fishing village return to her. She contemplates loneliness and is unexpectedly haunted by stories of tragic death.

Festivals & Awards
Winner of Beck’s Future’s Prize at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London 2003
Edinburgh International Film Festival
Asian American Film Festival New York
Sheffield Documentary Film Festival
Torino International Film Festival

AN ARCHEOLOGIST'S SUNDAY

Chinese Title:
English Title: An Archeologist’s Sunday
Director: Guo Xiaolu
Genre: Fiction/ Shot
Region: China/ Italy
Language: English/Mandarin
Running Time: 8min
Year of Production: 2008
Synopsis
Sunday afternoon. Romans are resting under the sun, kids are playing football.
Roberto, an archaeologist, is working in a dark cave beneath the park.

He is passionate about finding the past and history, his Chinese girlfriend Zhuwen worries about the future and daily life.

She argues with him, “Does your past save your future ?”

Festivals & Awards
Short fiction China/Italy - 8 minutes - 2008
Venice International Film Festival 2008
Venice Architecture Biennale 2008

Address Unknown

Chinese Title: Ming Xinpian
English Title: Address Unknown
Director: Guo Xiaolu
Genre: Fiction/ Shot
Region: China
Language: English
Running Time: 11min
Year of Production: 2006

Synopsis
From a Beijing apartment, a woman is writing postcards to a man in London.
We don’t see the woman or the man, there's only the camera contemplating Beijing in a melancholy eye. Each postcard is a long static shot.
The woman’s voice tells her loneliness in a rapidly changing China: highways, labour workers, meat market, people in the street…
All the postcards return - address unknown. Her lover seems to have disappeared from the other side of the world.
On a rainy night, she cancels her return flight to Europe.

Festivals & Awards
Rotterdam International Film Festival 2008
Créteil Women's Film Festival Paris 2008

Three Short Films About Home

Chinese Title: Guan Yu “Jia” De San Zu Duan Pian
English Title: Three Short Films About Home
Director: Guo Xiaolu
Genre: Documentary
Region: China/UK/Germany
Language: English/Mandarin
Running Time: 8min
Year of Production: 2009
Synopsis
A woman from a Chinese village stands straight in front of a train station. She is a chicken farmer. She has a shrill high-pitched opera singer’s voice. This is her first time in Chong Qing.
British people in the streets of London, near Liverpool Street Station, next to the City. An accountant, a bank worker, a policeman, some loud laughing suburb girls – "We are legends ! We are the future !" they shout.
Some working class sellers in an African vegetable market in Hackney, East London. The fishmonger has a big scar on his face. "What happened to your face?" I ask. "What happened? Of course my girlfriend did that!" he smiles.

Organizer: Ullens Center For Contemporary Art Art Cinema

Sponsor: Swiss Embassy