Best of Chinese cinema at film festival

massey-university

Fri Sep 27 2013 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)

Best of Chinese cinema at film festival

Friday, 27 September 2013, 11:09 am
Press Release: Massey University

Critically acclaimed Chinese language movies feature at a film festival at Massey University's Albany campus next week.

The Chinese Film Festival, organised by Massey’s School of Humanities, will show five films and give audiences an insight into contemporary life in China.

The festival will be held at Massey’s Albany campus from September 30 to 4 October, from 6pm each week night.

Senior lecturer in Chinese Dr Rosemary Haddon says filmmaking in China has flourished since the Cultural Thaw of the 1980s, and the five movies are both entertaining and enlightening.

“It is a privilege to share these highly acclaimed cultural products with local communities,” Dr Haddon says. “Through them we can learn a great deal about China’s recent socio-economic transformation.”

The first film is a documentary on the extraordinary life of Nieh Hualing, an acclaimed novelist, writer, poet and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, who experienced tragedy, surveillance and exile.

Others include a social-romance-comedy, dramas about ordinary people and a film about the largest human migration— the annual journey undertaken by Chinese migrant urban workers who return home to the countryside to celebrate Chinese New Year.

“The films are about ordinary people who deal with the challenges of ordinary life, or issues that regular filmgoers can identify with,” Dr Haddon says.

“The films are neither propaganda nor escapist but rather provide a window into ordinary life. More important, they give the local audience greater understanding about recent history and contemporary life in China.”

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It is the first year the festival is being held at the Albany campus, and the second year in Palmerston North, where the films screened earlier this month.

Last year it was popular with Palmerston North’s Chinese and local communities, and Dr Haddon says she hopes this year’s festival will also attract large numbers of Chinese students at the Albany campus as well as other members of Auckland communities.

All films are in Chinese with English subtitles and are free to attend.
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