cinechina

CINEMA FESTIVAL

Curated by Pino Bruni

Monday 17 July 2017
Monday 24 August 2017
Sunday 30 July 2017
Monday 7 August 2017
Monday 28 August 2017
Chiostro della Cattedrale, Atri – 9pm
Sunday 3 September 2017
Teatro Comunale, Atri – 9pm

FREE ENTRY

Promo
Trailer

MOUNTAINS MAY DEPART

by Jia Zhangke

China, 1999. Childhood friends Liangzi and Zhang are both in love with Tao, the town beauty. Tao eventually decides to marry the wealthier Zhang. They soon have a son he names Dollar… From China to Australia, the lives, loves, hopes and disillusions of a family over two generations in a society changing at breakneck speed.

Monday 17 lJuly 2017 – 9pm

Cloister of Atri Cathedral

FREE ENTRY

aldiladellemontagne

Monday 24 July 2017 – 9pm

Cloister of Atri Cathedral

FREE ENTRY

nonunodimeno

NOT ONE LESS

by Zhang Yimou

In a remote mountain village, the teacher must leave for a month, and the mayor can find only a 13-year old girl, Wei Minzhi, to substitute. The teacher leaves one stick of chalk for each day and promises her an extra 10 yuan if there’s not one less student when he returns. Within days, poverty forces the class troublemaker, Zhang Huike, to leave for the city to work. Minzhi, possessed of a stubborn streak, determines to bring him back. She enlists the 26 remaining pupils in earning money for her trip. She hitches to Jiangjiakou City and begins her search. The boy, meanwhile, is there, lost and begging for food. Minzhi’s stubbornness may be Huike and the village school’s salvation.

BEIJING BICYCLE

by Wang Xiaoshuai

Beijing: young men in packs, machismo, class divisions, violence, and indifference. Guei arrives from the country: toothbrushes, hotel foyers, and Qin, a rich neighbor in high heels, dazzle him. He gets a job as a messenger. The company issues him a bike, which he must pay for out of his wages. When it is stolen, Guei hunts for it. A student, Jian, has it; for him, it’s the key to teen society – with his pals and with Xiao, a girl he fancies. Guei finds the bike and stubbornly tries to reclaim it in the face of great odds. But for Jian to lose the bike would mean humiliation. The two young men – and the people around them – are swept up in the youths’ desperation.

Sunday 30 July 2017 – 9pm

Cloister of Atri Cathedral

FREE ENTRY

biciclettedipechino

Monday 7 August 2017 – 9pm

Cloister of Atri Cathedral

FREE ENTRY

theassassin

THE ASSASSIN

by Hou Hsiao-Hsien

The assassin (2015) è l’ultimo film, in ordine di tempo, di Hou Hsiao-Hsien, uno dei registi più in vista del cinema orientale contemporaneo in generale, in quanto a creazione di forme, messinscena e inquadrature insolite che sono spesso di prim’ordine. In questo caso il regista riconferma tutto il suo talento visionario nel raccontare di una vicenda della Cina dell’VIII secolo dove si muove un’assassina incaricata di uccidere i funzionari governativi che si sono macchiati di corruzione; ma quando durante una di quella che dev’essere la solita esecuzione, viene assalita da un senso di misericordia che la porta a risparmiare la vittima designata, viene punita dal suo padrone, una suora che l’ha accudita fin da quando era piccola: costei infatti le affida un incarico molto più difficile del solito, ossia l’uccisione del cugino. Folgorante soprattutto a livello visivo, e pregno di valori mistici, è il solo film in costume (più precisamente il wuxiapian) del suo regista: dai valori anche ermetici, si tratta di un lavoro di eccezionale suggestione che si preoccupa di raggiungere un livello estatico, una sorta di incantesimo ottenuto con una grande attenzione all’aspetto visuale, veramente poderoso, evitando in questo assetto anche eccesivi approfondimenti dei personaggi che si muovono quasi come pedine di una vicenda storica che sembra trascolorare nel mito e nella leggenda.

SEVENTEEN YEARS

by Zhang Yuan

Tao Lan and Yu Xiaoqin are teenage stepsisters. They go to the same high school, sleep in the same bedroom, but couldn’t be more different. The first is wild, a bit of a vagabond, while the other is diligent and studies hard. One day Yu Xiaoqin steals money from her father and puts the blame on Tao Lin, who accidentally kills her sister while attempting to prove her innocence, and is put in jail. 17 years later, a woman by now, she is allowed out and is escorted by a guard to find her home long demolished. The two go to the new address of the ageing parents, and the guard becomes an eyewitness to the difficult reunion and the girl’s remorse, the anxiety and fear of the mother and the stepfather’s silent struggle to rise above his pain and find forgiveness.

Monday 28 August 2017 – 9pm

Cloister of Atri Cathedral

FREE ENTRY

diciassette-anni

Sunday 3 September 2017 – 9pm

Atri Theater

FREE ENTRY

Behemoth

BEHEMOTH

by Zhao Liang

Under the sun, the heavenly beauty of grasslands will soon be covered by the raging dust of mines. Facing the ashes and noises caused by heavy mining , the herdsmen have no choice but to leave as the meadow areas dwindle. In the moonlight, iron mines are brightly lit throughout the night. Workers who operate the drilling machines must stay awake. The fight is tortuous, against the machine and against themselves. Meanwhile, coal miners are busy filling trucks with coals. Wearing a coal-dust mask, they become ghostlike creatures. An endless line of trucks will transport all the coals and iron ores to the iron works. There traps another crowd of souls, being baked in hell. In the hospital, time hangs heavy on miners’ hands. After decades of breathing coal dust, death is just around the corner. They are living the reality of purgatory, but there will be no paradise.