Chen Kaige’s restored version of “The Yellow Earth” is one of the highlights of the 8th Pingyao International Film Festival. The film helped put Chinese art cinema on the map overseas and heralded a new era of Chinese directors, now referred to as the Fifth Generation. The film was originally released 40 years ago.
The festival, which runs from September 24 to 30, will open with the world premiere of “River Without Tears” by director Liu Guan.
The Hidden Dragons section of the festival includes Chinese films: the Asian premiere of Hello, Spring by Ma Lanhua; the Asian premiere of Stars and Moon by Tang Yongkan; the world premieres of Village Music by Wang Lina; River Song by Zhou Xin; Karst by Yang Suyi; Cha Cha in Chinatown by Luca Yang Yuanyuan; Floating Clouds Blocking the Sun by Chen Tao; True Love, Once in My Life by Siu Kun Ho; Reflections in the Lake by Chai Yixiang; Between and Between by Zhou Quan; and Green Wave by Xu Li.
The Crouching Tigers Facing the World section includes: Paula Carneiro’s Savanna and the Mountain; Matthew Rankin’s award-winning Universal Language; India Donaldson’s The Good; Hernan Rosselli’s Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed; Tyler Taormina’s Christmas Eve at Miller’s Point; Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valdez’s Sojo; Boris Lozhkin’s The Story of Solomon; Santiago Lozano Álvarez’s I Saw Three Black Lights; Carlo Ceroni’s My Summer with Irene; Ramon Zuercher’s The Bird in the Chimney; and Neo Sora’s Happy Ending.
The new documentaries by Leonfan are “Crossing the Years”, “Visiting Hours” by Patricia Mazzui, “The Damned” by Roberto Minervini, “The Other Way” by Jonas Trueba, “The Black Box Diaries” by Shiori Ito, “There is Still Tomorrow” by Paola Cortellessi, and “My Sunshine” by Okuyama Hiroshi.
The expanded retrospective also includes: Bille August's 1987 film “Bill the Conqueror”; Ermanno Olmi's 1978 film “The Tree of Wooden Clogs”; Satyajit Ray's 1955 film “Pather Panchali”; and Abbas Kiarostami's 1992 film “And Life Goes On”.
