The mobile-first film fes­ti­val bring­ing the Chi­nese box office to US homes

The New-York-based Chi­nese film organ­i­sa­tion CineCi­na has teamed up with Smart Cin­e­ma USA – a stream­ing plat­form intro­duc­ing Chi­nese box office films to North Amer­i­can audi­ences – to launch the first CineCi­na iFest on the SmartCin­e­ma USA mobile app.

Run­ning now through 31 August, the mobile-first fes­ti­val boasts a diverse line-up: The Shad­ow Play from pres­ti­gious indie mas­ter Lou Ye is a truth-seek­ing crime thriller reveal­ing the pri­vate imageries of con­tem­po­rary Chi­na; the Chi­nese-Euro­pean co-pro­duced Bit­ter Flow­ers is a doc­u­men­tary-like exposé of mar­gin­alised Chi­nese pros­ti­tutes work­ing in France; direc­tor Zhang Ming’s 2018 Cannes con­tender The Plu­to Moment is a visu­al­ly strik­ing dra­ma root­ed in sex­u­al frus­tra­tion; and there’s a ret­ro­spec­tive of Midi Z’s ​“home­com­ing tril­o­gy”, Return to Bur­ma (2011), Poor Folk (2012) and Ice Poi­son (2014), each char­ac­terised by their human­i­tar­i­an insights and intri­cate nar­ra­tive devices.

The Shad­ow Play is the fore­most high­light of the fes­ti­val, as Lou’s explo­rative for­ay into the detec­tive noir genre is marked by a painful­ly authen­tic Chi­nese-ness. Lou is best known for tak­ing on polit­i­cal­ly sen­si­tive sub­jects as well as domes­tic cen­sor­ship, which has led him to gar­ner inter­na­tion­al atten­tion. Com­pared to his pre­vi­ous works, exem­pli­fied by 2006’s Sum­mer Palace, with its overt author­i­ty-chal­leng­ing state­ment, The Shad­ow Play’s pol­i­tics are more seam­less­ly woven into the film’s narrative.

Back­dropped by China’s present real­i­ty of rapid mod­erni­sa­tion and urban­i­sa­tion – facil­i­tat­ed by mass hous­ing demo­li­tions and res­i­dent evic­tions – The Shad­ow Play opens with the grim death of a con­struc­tion com­mit­tee offi­cial, which is inves­ti­gat­ed by a young police offi­cer as deep­er lay­ers of pow­er-hun­gry, mon­ey-grab­bing con­spir­a­cies are uncov­ered in the met­ro­pol­i­tan under­bel­lies of Guangzhou and Hong Kong. It makes for a sen­sa­tion­al view­ing expe­ri­ence, as the wan­der­ing, almost dis­ori­ent­ing hand­held cam­era move­ments bring out the gloomy, grit­ty pathol­o­gy of the Chi­nese cities and its peo­ple at a des­per­ate loss.

Anoth­er aspect of the fes­ti­val worth not­ing is its thought­ful cura­tion of Midi Z’s three ear­li­er films, which estab­lished the direc­tor as a neo­re­al­ist ris­ing star car­ry­ing on the lega­cy of the Tai­wanese real­ist auteur Hou Hsiao-hsien. As a Myan­mar-born Tai­wanese, Midi Z incor­po­rates his dias­poric back­ground into his film­mak­ing, open­ing up the new fron­tier of Chi­nese-lan­guge cin­e­ma cul­tur­al­ly, eco­nom­i­cal­ly and sociopo­lit­i­cal­ly in South­east Asia. Through­out the tril­o­gy, Midi Z’s path of tech­ni­cal and styl­is­tic evo­lu­tion is laid out over a the­mat­ic foun­da­tion of the lived expe­ri­ences of dis­placed work­ing-class Chi­nese peo­ple liv­ing on the fringes of for­eign societies.

CineCi­na iFest is clear in its mis­sion to sub­vert the pre­dom­i­nant and prob­lem­at­ic impres­sion of Chi­nese cin­e­ma as a mono­lith­ic nation­al and cul­tur­al enti­ty. The films select­ed demon­strate con­tem­po­rary Chi­nese cinema’s appeal to both domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al audi­ences. And, giv­en, the ongo­ing nature of America’s nation­wide Covid-19 cri­sis, the festival’s mobile exhi­bi­tion method has the poten­tial to reach a much wider audi­ence than a tra­di­tion­al film festival.

In light of the increas­ing­ly strained Chi­na-US rela­tions, the fes­ti­val feels par­tic­u­lar­ly time­ly, show­ing the poten­tial of a long-over­due cul­tur­al exchange between the two nations through cin­e­ma. Hav­ing accessed the festival’s care­ful­ly curat­ed pro­gramme, the hope is that US audi­ences will come away with a more firm grasp of the val­ue sys­tems and region­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion that exists with­in Chi­nese cin­e­ma, as well as Chi­nese film­mak­ers’ desire for their voic­es to be heard out­side of their state-sanc­tioned main­stream film industry.

For more info vis­it cine​-cina​.co