Double bill ends Shanghai Biennale session
Films by directors Zhang Ming and Zhu Wen were screened at the Power Station of Art recently to close the 13th Shanghai Biennale's "Close-Up" unit.
A question-and-answer session was held after the screening.
The "Close-Up" unit, organized by the Center for Experimental Film and the Power Station of Art, invites the country's top film directors and visual artists to take part in screenings and meet-the-audience sessions.
Zhang's 2009 work "The Bride" was shot on digital video. It's about group of friends daydreaming about marrying a woman and killing her to get the insurance money.
Zhu's 2003 film "South of the Clouds" centers on a retiree who fulfills a lifelong desire to travel to Yunnan Province.
Both works were inspired by the directors' own lives and hometowns with strong regional features.
Zhu Wen (left) and Zhang Ming
In addition to "The Bride," Zhang has made a number of films set in Chongqing's Wushan.
"With the vast territory, China has varied and distinguished regional features," said Zhang. "In a lot of southern cities, like Wushan, the urbanization process is thriving, but there are a lot of hidden problems belonging only to this era."
He added: "We hold the impression that people from the northern China talk and think more about power, while people from the south care more about aesthetics. When I started filming, there was already an academic format. But I wanted to create something different."
Zhu said "South of the Clouds" was dedicated to his parent's generation.
"There is a dream, or rather fantasyland, in this film," he said. "There were already a lot of realistic Chinese films at that time. But we need art just because reality is not enough for us. Therefore, I created such a work."
"South of the Clouds" is screened at the Power Station of Art.
