NEW FEATURES | CINECITY 2006 | THE BRIGHTON FILM FESTIVAL

CINECITY
THE BRIGHTON FILM FESTIVAL
16 NOVEMBER - 3 DECEMBER 2006

CINECITY: shanghai
explored through a series of features, documentaries and artists' moving images

Shanghai is one of the most exciting and dynamic cities in the world. It has been described as the first great city of the 21st Century. At the start of the 19th century, Shanghai had been little more than a fishing village but it was opium that really opened the city to the West. Britain and other European powers forced China to open its trade in the drug and then carved up large parts of Shanghai into concessions. The city quickly became the place in China for the rest of the world to do business.

The Shanghai of the 20s and 30s, before the Japanese invasion in 1937, has regularly been brought to us through cinema and literature, including two classic Western novels: When We Were Orphans (2000) by Kazuo Ishiguro and JG Ballard's Empire Of The Sun (1984) later filmed by Steven Spielberg. It is a period that continues to fascinate both Western and Chinese film-makers. Zhang Yimou's SHANGHAI TRIAD (1995) and Chen Kaige's TEMPTRESS MOON (1996) both starring Gong Li, are sumptuous evocations of the era's criminal underworld.

Earlier this year, the Merchant-Ivory film THE WHITE COUNTESS, scripted by Ishiguro and starring Ralph Fiennes and Natasha Richardson, tried to capture a flavour of the city's degeneracy in the thirties. The film was the first co-production between Shanghai Film Studios and Western producers and though poorly received by critics, it heralds a new era of collaboration between Shanghai and the West. Wong Kar Wai (IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE) was born in the city and is about to shoot a remake of THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI with Nicole Kidman as the lead.

There are numerous parallels between pre-war Shanghai and its modern counterpart. Back in the 1930s, Shanghai was the biggest city in Asia and the epitome of everything modern and cosmopolitan. It is now once again the most international - and largest - of Chinese cities. Once known as "the Hollywood of the East" the very first Chinese films were made there. Now film-making is very much part of the Shanghai boom. In addition to recent co-productions like THE WHITE COUNTESS, the rapidly changing Shanghai skyline gets plenty of exposure in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III as Tom Cruise swings from skyscraper to skyscraper and runs through the city streets. The futuristic aspects of Shanghai also made it the perfect setting for Michael Winterbottom's CODE 46 (2004).

temptress moon 15
sun 19 NOV 1.45PM
DUKE OF YORK'S

Chen Kaige followed his Oscar-nominated FAREWELL MY CONCUBINE with this emotionally complex study of a young gigolo's obsession with the daughter of a wealthy, decaying family. Opening on the eve of the 1911 Revolution (when Imperial China became a republic), the camera lingers on the smiling face of the young opium-addicted Ruyi (Gong Li) whose family have adopted an orphaned youth, Zhonglian (Leslie Cheung). Treated as little more than a servant, he flees the house. Fast forward to the 1920s and Zhongliang has become a gigolo as part of a blackmailing racket in Shanghai while Ruyi is now head of the household. The scene is set for their ill-starred love affair to develop. Superbly shot by Wong Kar Wai regular Chris Doyle, TEMPTRESS MOON is a visually intoxicating and sumptuous evocation of the era. The neon-bathed and opium-fuelled Shanghai makes for a film of intense atmosphere and a masterly work of mood and feeling.

The screening will be introduced by Anna Chen www.annachen.co.uk, a writer and performer, best known for her acclaimed one woman theatre show 'Suzy Wrong: Human Canon'. Anna is currently working on a 10 part series for BBC Radio 4 on the history of the British Chinese Community. Anna will also lead a post-film discussion.

For further details www.brightoninternationalfilmsociety.org/

empire of the sun pg
tues 21 NOV 1PM
DUKE OF YORK'S

An intelligent and thought-provoking film about the loss of childhood innocence through the horrors of war featuring an excellent performance from a young Christian Bale. Based on the autobiographical novel by JG Ballard the story focuses on James Graham, a privileged British boy living in Shanghai whose life is turned upside down when the Japanese invade the city. He is first separated from his parents before being interned in a prisoner of war camp. Spielberg's visually expressive style fills the screen and the early scenes of Shanghai before the impact of the war make for particularly impressive viewing.

suzhou river 12
Sun 26 NOV 12noon
DUKE OF YORK'S

Director Lou Ye skillfully turns Shanghai's grimy Suzhou River into the setting for this magical realist love story. Mardar has just been released from prison and is still guilt stricken after his girlfriend fell into the Suzhou River and disappeared. Years later when he finds a girl performing a mermaid act in a huge fish tank in a nightclub, he thinks he has found her. A love letter to Shanghai with echoes of Hitchcock's VERTIGO and the stylistic flourishes of fellow Shanghainese, Wong Kar Wai. SUZHOU RIVER is an original exploration into memory and identity from one of China's key talents. Lou Ye's latest film SUMMER PALACE - shot in Beijing and Berlin - screened in competition at this year's Cannes.

exile shanghai adv 12
Sun 26 NOV 6pm and mon 27 6PM
BRIGHTON FRINGE BASEMENT

The lives of six German, Austrian and Russian Jews cross paths in war-time Shanghai - the cosmopolitan city became a haven to large numbers of European Jewish refugees feeling Nazism in the 1930s. This fascinating documentary, full of dry humour, traces their lives in exile through archive footage, photographs, interviews and scenes of contemporary Shanghai. Located in the most fabulous city of the Far East this is an extraordinary cultural odyssey that conjures up the lost Jewish world of Shanghai.

EXILE SHANGHAI is divided into 5 separate stories and runs for a total of 275 mins. Stories 1 & 2 will screen on Sun 26 and 3,4 & 5 on Mon 27.

EVERLASTING REGRET adv 15
wed 29 NOV 8.45PM
CINEWORLD

Stanley Kwan's story of the city of Shanghai from the 1940s to 1981 chronicles the life and loves of Qiyao (Sammi Cheng), a postwar beauty queen. She bears witness to the changes in Shanghai over the decades, her intimate personal history and changing fortunes placed within the overarching historical framework of political transformation. Kwan's epic drama - full of period décor, mood and music - is a beautiful and stylish tale. EVERLASTING REGRET is based on the multi-award winning novel, Changhen Ge (voted the most influential work of the 90s in China) by Wang Anyi, who also co-wrote the screenplay for TEMPTRESS MOON with Chen Kaige.

CINECITY
SHANGHAI FROLIC
AN INSTALATION BY ANDREW KöTTING
Sat 2 DEC 12noon-6pm
BRIGHTON FRINGE BASEMENT

SHANGHAI FROLIC is a two-screen video installation by Hastings-based artist Andrew Kötting. On one screen a panoramic view of Shanghai slowly disintegrates as a violent storm builds whilst on the other, from a rear window the prying camera zooms into the apartments and nocturnal lives of the city dwellers. A soundtrack permeates the space culled from a series of eight bicycle rides that Kötting made whilst living there in 2004. As part of the installation Kötting also presents a bookwork in which he has extracted his musings and contemplations from the original Dictaphone recordings and translated them into both Mandarin, (pictographic symbols of spoken words) and Rebus (a simple pictographic text-based symbol system used for people with communication problems in the West).

Meet The Artist
Andrew Kötting will be at Brighton Fringe Basement on Saturday 18th November at 1pm

For details of a screening of Andrew Kötting's feature film GALLIVANT and short, LA BAS, see ANDREW KöTTING in the NEW FEATURES section

UNDERCURENT
sat 18 Nov - Sun 26 Nov weekdays 4-8pm
LIGHTHOUSE

Undercurent brings together sound and visual artists based in the UK and China in a cross-continental collaboration. The project feeds from a pool of audio, video and photographic material collected by D-Fuse from cities in both countries. This is being re-interpreted in response to questions of urban architecture, economic and social change as well as our personal relations to the space that surrounds us. Undercurrent is a multi-screened, immersive environment of high-resolution video/images and sound.

Locations:
Shanghai, Guangzhou + Chongqing London, Liverpool + Sunderland

D-FUSE
D-Fuse are artists working in a trans-disciplinary method with cutting edge technology, across wide range of creative media from the Web, Print, TV, Film, Art and Architecture, to Live A/V Performances and Mobile Media.

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS
8gg, Actop, B6, D-Fuse [Michael FAULKNER + Matthias KISPERT], Ariane GEIL, Haus M Commune, LIN Zhiying, Davide QUAYOLA, Barney STEEL, Axel STOCKBURGER, THOM Chin, WANG Geezer, XU Cheng, ZHONG Minjie, Zip Design

D-Fuse and 8gg - In Conversation.
Sun 19 Nov 4pm

LIGHTHOUSE

8gg is a leading multimedia duo from Beijing composed of Jiang Haiqing and Fu Yu. Their works include music, video, installation, drama, and web art and have been shown at MOMA [New York] Cynetart [Dresden/Germany], File International Festival [Brazil], 2004 Shanghai Biennial, Centre Pompidou [Paris], Kunsten Festival des Arts [Brussels] and others. As collaborators in the D-Fuse project undercurrent , 8gg will be visiting the UK in November - December for the first staging of the undercurrent video installation and as artists in residence with /sLab, the digital media research lab at the University of Sunderland. This round table discussion will debate themes connected to the undercurrent project - the city and our personal relations to urban space, cross-continental collaboration and international exchange, as well as the contemporary chinese media arts scene.

Chaired by Keith Whittle, director, /sLab. With 8gg, and Matthias Kispert, Michael Faulkner and Keri Elmsly of D-Fuse.

CINECITY SHANGHAI
ARTISTS' SCREENINGS AT brighton fringe BASEMENT

An engaging selection of short films made in Shanghai by UK artists suported by Artist Links China, a two-way artist development and exchange oportunity funded by Arts Council England and operating within the British Council.

SHANGHAI ON SCREEN 1: Shanghai artists
Sun 19 NOV 1.45PM
DUKE OF YORK'S

A selection of the very latest moving image work from Shanghai artists curated by BizArt Art Center, one of the key organisations at the forefront of the Shanghai art scene. Featured artists include: Liang Yue, Song Tao, Zhang Ding, Zhou Hongxiang.

SHANGHAI ON SCREEN 2: DOCUMENTING THE CITY
mon 20 nov 8pm
DUKE OF YORK'S

BRILLIANT CITY
D-Fuse shot this film entirely from the 34th floor of one of the blocks of flats in Brilliant City, a residential complex of 25 highrises in the northern part of Shanghai. It stages a peeping tom view of the city below, capturing everyday activities that can be observed from this vantage point such as training soldiers, building activity, traffic, gardening. The camera hovers above the entire panorama and focuses on details in the everyday life of this rapidly changing metropolis.
Michael Faulkner + Axel Stockburger. Audio Matthias Kispert. UK/China 2004. 15mins.

HERO
A short video sketch Cotterrell filmed on the streets of Shanghai: traffic conductors, lone policemen and traffic 'assistants' are individually documented attempting to impose order on the masses of cars, trucks, buses, bicycles and pedestrians of central Shanghai. These men, reminiscent of Gary Cooper's Marshal Will Kane, single-handedly attempt to stem the seeping of traffic along gargantuan stretches of 10-lane motorways. Ignored and avoided, their attempts are comi-tragic - like a modern-day Sisyphus, each must do battle with the masses and their machines to earn his daily bread. Courtesy of Danielle Arnaud.
David Cotterell 2005. 19mins

GOOD MORNING SHANGHAI
The morning exercise routines of people in Shanghai's public parks. Especially popular amongst the elderly, these exercises include tai chi, drumming, singing, dancing, slapping of the body, sword fencing and other martial arts routines. Taking place simultaneously within the parks, these exercise movements offer fascinating visual rhythms that animate these public spaces each morning.
Eric Fong 2006. 5 mins

CHINESE TONGUE DIAGNOSIS
A playful view of one of the essential diagnostic methods of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), a system of healing that focuses on achieving internal balance. As the voluntary participants were of different ages and different cultural backgrounds, this work also offers a celebration of their physical and cultural diversity.
Eric Fong 2005. 2.30mins

RED LANTERN HOUSE
A recently arrived American notices a woman living in a partially demolished house on a massive development site in Shanghai, a row of welcoming red lanterns strung proudly over her doorway. This film captures the final days of the Red Lantern House and the beginning of an unlikely friendship.
Narrated by Leslie Hill.

OLIVO BARBIERI: SITE SPECIFIC FREE
THURS 30 Nov 8pm
brighton fringe Basement

For over 20 years Italian artist Olivo Barbieri's work has focused on cities. His aerial photography and film-making make the cities of the world seem at first like highly detailed models. Filming from a helicopter on 35mm film and High Definition Video, Barbieri uses a tilt-shift lens that enables him to focus on a particular building or area, the equivalent perhaps of focusing on one line at a time when reading a page of text. This programme presents the old world (Rome), new world (Las Vegas) and future world (Shanghai) - a trilogy representing Europe, America and Asia.

site specific_Roma 04 shows the Italian capital's famous tourist destinations such as the Coliseum and the Pantheon, contrasted with 1930s public housing, transport systems and contemporary buildings on the edge of the city.

site specific_Las Vegas 05 begins in the spectacular surrounding desert moving to the reflecting edifices of hotel and gambling complexes which in their architecture bring together Venice, Paris and Egypt.

site specific_ Shanghai 04 (A Silent Story) reveals a constantly evolving city of skyscrapers, industry and housing.