2016 COB SCHEDULE Contents Los Angeles, UCLA Film & Television Archive | 1 Los Angeles, Film at REDCAT | 7 New York, Asia Society | 8 Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art | 10 Press Kit | 12 Presenting Partners & Sponsors | 13 Media Contact | 13 Los Angeles | UCLA Film & Television Archive THEATER KEY Wilder Billy Wilder Theater, courtyard level of the UCLA Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd. in Westwood Bridges James Bridges Theater, 1409 Melnitz Hall on the UCLA campus YRL Young Research Library on the UCLA campus Garden UCLA Sculpture Garden on the UCLA campus TICKETS $10 online; $9 general; $8 non-UCLA students, seniors, UCLA Alumni Association members (ID required) if purchased at the box office only. Free admission for UCLA students (current ID required); free tickets available on a first-come, first-served basis at the box office until 15 minutes before showtime, or the rush line afterwards. Online tickets available at www.cinema.ucla.edu/calendar. PARKING Wilder – Museum parking lot; enter from Westwood Blvd., just north of Wilshire. $6 flat rate after 6:00 pm weekdays and all day on weekends. Cash only. Bridges/YRL/Garden – UCLA Parking Structure 3; enter from Hilgard Ave. just south of Sunset Blvd. $12/ day or pay-by-space. INFORMATION | cinema.ucla.edu OPENING NIGHT Friday, October 14 • 7:30 PM @ Wilder West Coast Premiere THARLO र၎ China, 2015 Director/Screenwriter: Pema Tseden | DCP | Color | In Tibetan with English subtitles | 123 min. Cast: Shide Nyima, Yangshik Tso. !1 Tibetan sheep-herder Tharlo journeys from his remote village to get a photo ID in the nearest town of Qinghai province where he meets a city woman whose romantic intentions may not be what they first seem. One of the most prominent Tibetan filmmakers working today, Pema Tseden tells this age-old tale, richly capturing contrasts of geography and tone, as a naive romance turns into something darker. Popular Tibetan comedian Shide Nyima brings a bittersweet edge to the title role. Preceded by World Premiere ! China, 2016 Director: Gu Changwei | MOV | color | approx. 3 min. Gu plays visual puns with the exclamation point warning internet users in China of blocked content. “!” repetitively cycles into “i” and back again. World Premiere N39º54' 12.56" E116º23' 14.20" China, 2015 Director/Cinematographer: Gu Changwei | MOV | b&w | 16 min. In recent years, award-winning director (Peacock, 2005) and cinematographer (Farewell My Concubine, 1993) Gu Changwei has turned to art photography and video installation. In this transfixing iPhone-shot video from his “money” series, the Great Hall of the People stands as immovable an edifice in Tiananmen Square as it does etched on the Chinese 100 RMB banknote – a permanent lodestar while human and vehicular traffic ebb and flow in super slo-mo before it. An earlier version of the video was presented as an installation at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. In person: Director Gu Changwei, in conversation with art curator John Kong Co-presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Saturday, October 15 • 7:30 PM @ Wilder Los Angeles Premiere TRIVISA ໅य़೗ᷚ Hong Kong/China, 2016 Directors: Jevons Au, Frank Hui, Vicky Wong | DCP | Color | In Cantonese, Mandarin and Thai with English subtitles | 96 min. Screenwriters: Loong Man Hoong, Thomas Ng, Mak Tin Shu | Cast: Lam Ka Tung, Richie Jen, Jordan Chan. A chance encounter between three gangsters plying the border between Hong Kong and China just before the 1997 handover sets the stage for this intricate tale filmed by three young directors mentored by veteran auteur Johnnie To. Trivisa interweaves plans gone awry, missed opportunities and dead ends, reimagining not just the end of an era but the explosive beginnings of 21st-century Hong Kong. Monday, October 17 • 7:30 PM @ Wilder West Coast Premiere BEHEMOTH ṹْنఓ China, 2015 Director: Zhao Liang | DCP | Color | In Mandarin with English subtitles | 94 min. Independent documentarian Zhao Liang presents a stunning vision of the natural and human disaster unfolding across China as strip mines and iron works transform a landscape and a people into a living version of Dante’s Hell. Indeed, Zhao directly references the Divine Comedy in the film’s poetic structure and its mythological meditation on the environmental devastation it captures. !2 In person: Zhao Liang Wednesday, October 19 • 7:30 PM @ Bridges DUNHUANG PROJECTED West Coast Restoration Premiere STAGE SISTERS ᛩݣথট China, 1964 Director: Xie Jin | DCP | color | In Mandarin with English subtitles | 112 min. | Restoration by L’Immagine Ritrovata for the Shanghai International Film Festival Screenwriters: Lin Gu, Xu Jin, Xie Jin | Cast: Xie Fang, Cao Yindi, Deng Nan. In this lush backstage drama set in the decades leading up to 1949, a pair of Chinese opera actresses sing their way from the countryside to the city and back again. Caught up in Cultural Revolution power struggles, veteran director Xie Jin’s portrait of female solidarity and awakening political consciousness was banned almost immediately but revived in the 1980s as a masterpiece of Chinese filmmaking, and is now newly released in this magnificent digital restoration. Preceded by West Coast Premiere THE HEDONISTS ០ኞ China, 2016 Director: Jia Zhangke | DCP | Color | In Mandarin with English subtitles | 26 min. Screenwriters: Zhao Tao, Jia Zhangke | Cast: Liang Jingdong, Han Sanming, Yuan Wenqian. Critically acclaimed director Jia Zhangke and his longtime muse Zhao Tao craft a drily absurdist tale of three laid-off coal factory workers retraining to be performers at a new cultural theme park. Director Jia recently joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Co-presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Sunday, October 23 • 9:00 AM @ Garden/Bridges DUNHUANG PROJECTED North American Premiere ATA ᆙᥠ China, 2014 Director/Screenwriter: Chakme Rinpoche | DCP | B&W | In Mandarin with English subtitles | 94 min. Cast: Wang Ning, Jiao Gang, Meng Tianyu. Tianyu is a sightless boy whose mother believes his only chance for a future is to become a champion disabled Ping Pong player. Tianyu has other ideas – envisioning a much wider world than his mother understands. When he goes missing, she is forced to see things as he does in this beautiful, spiritually suffused debut feature from Tibetan writer-director Chakme Rinpoche. West Coast Premiere JOURNEY TO THE WEST ᥜ჋ France/Taiwan, 2014 Director: Tsai Ming-liang | Blu-ray | Color | 56 min. Cast: Lee Kang-sheng, Denis Lavant. !3 Malaysian-Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-liang reinterprets the spiritual allegory of the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West as cinematic performance art. With mesmerizing slowness, a Buddhist monk (played by Tsai’s alter ego Lee Kang-sheng) inches forward through the streets of Marseille. Along the way Tsai’s camera reveals a delicate interplay of concentration, urbanism and everyday life. In person: Ata director Chakme Rinpoche, in conversation with theater director and UCLA Distinguished Professor of World Arts & Cultures/Dance, Peter Sellars Please note: Chakme Rinpoche will lead a group meditation open to audience members from 9:00-9:25 am in the UCLA Sculpture Garden, adjacent to the James Bridges Theater where Ata will screen at 9:45 am. Chai tea will be served after the meditation. Sunday, October 23 • 7:00 PM @ Wilder West Coast Premiere A SIMPLE GOODBYE ڦޞ China, 2015 Director/Screenwriter: Degena Yun | DCP | Color | In Mandarin and Mongolian with English subtitles | 97 min. Cast: Tu Men, Ai Liya, Degena Yun Writer-director Degena Yun also stars in this understated semi-autobiographical story of a daughter and father equally adrift at opposite ends of their lives. A college dropout, she withdraws into virtual relationships while he, diagnosed with cancer, recedes into memories of his career as a leading Mongolian filmmaker. Their separate but parallel lives cross and clash building to a final recognition. In person: Degena Yun (via live video) Friday, October 28 • 7:30 PM @ Wilder North American Premiere RIVER မ China, 2015 Director/Screenwriter: Sonthar Gyal | DCP | Color | In Tibetan with English subtitles | 94 min. Cast: Yangchan Lhamu, Regzin Drolma, Guru Tsedan. A young girl, her father and his father each long for stronger relationships with the other but must fight the weight of histories, personal and national, to rebuild their bonds. Tibetan writer-director Sonthar Gyal (The Sun-Beaten Path) makes breathtaking use of the Tibetan plains and mountains as an epic backdrop to this intimate family drama. Saturday, October 29 • 7:30 PM @ Wilder US Premiere TA’ANG ஛෼ Hong Kong/France, 2016 Director: Wang Bing | DCP | Color | In Burmese and Mandarin with English subtitles | 147 min. The latest work from groundbreaking Chinese documentarian Wang Bing (and new member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) takes us to a remote, lean-to refugee camp on the Sino- Myanmar border, where members of Myanmar’s Ta’ang ethnic minority have fled to escape renewed fighting in that country’s decades-long civil war. Wang immerses us in the ebb and flow of the camp, the search for family, necessities, and humanity redolent in the smallest of gestures. !4 Preceded by North American Premiere TRACES ᭳࣎ China, 2014 Director: Wang Bing | HD video | Color | 29 min. A perambulation of memory in Gobi Desert earth and bones of the former Jiabiangou labor camp where more than a thousand men starved to death in the anti-rightist campaign of the late 1950s. Wang Bing shot the footage while developing his 2010 feature The Ditch. Co-presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Sunday, October 30 • 7:00 PM @ Wilder West Coast Premiere THE ROAD य़᪠๖ॠ China/Denmark, 2015 Director: Zhang Zanbo | DCP | color | In Mandarin with English subtitles | 95 min. The absurd heights of bureaucratic indifference and official corruption captured by director Zhang Zanbo’s camera might lead one to think The Road is a work of fiction.