Friday, May 1, 2015

CINEMA PACIFIC GLOBAL INDUSTRIES FORUM with ERIC LIN

Eric Lin

12:30 p.m.  141 Allen Hall

Free

The Chinese film industry has become a vital center for global film and media activity. As Hollywood aims to co-produce with Chinese companies to gain access to its lucrative market, China continues to grow its robust domestic movie industry. Sharing his insight into this phenomenon, Eric Lin (alumnus of UO’s School of Journalism and Communication, 1997) will participate in the Cinema Pacific Global Producers Forum.

As Senior Manager of Film Production at Bona Film Group, the largest privately owned film distributor in China, Lin brings years of film experience working in Hong Kong and Beijing. Lin’s work involves working on China and Hong Kong legal agreements, coordinating day-to-day operations including various film projects’ production and payment schedules, and  reviewing shooting scripts and English production notes and subtitling.He recently helped shepherd Taking of Tiger Mountain, the latest blockbuster film by director Tsui Hark, who revolutionized the “wuxia” film in the Nineties (Hark’s Once Upon a Time in China screens in Cinema Pacific on April 29). Join us for talk and conversation with Lin, which will be moderated by Daniel Steinhart, Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media.

 

WUXIA CINEMA AFTER CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON

Kin Yan Szeto

A talk by Dr. Kin-Yan Szeto

3:00 p.m.  Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art

Free

The wuxia genre had attracted great interest and investment in China when Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) became an international box-office hit and won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. This presentation will look at how wuxia films made after 2000 navigate the demands of commercial entertainment and the promotion of Chinese culture and nationalism. Dr. Kin-yan Szeto, associate professor in the Department of Theater and Dance at Appalachian State University, is the author of Martial Arts Cinema of the Chinese Diaspora, a study of the international films of Ang Lee, John Woo, and Jackie Chan.

 

FRINGE FESTIVAL PREVIEW

5:30–8:00 p.m.  Broadway Commerce Center, 44 West Broadway in Eugene

Free

Catch a preview of video works by artists who will unveil installations and performances at Saturday night’s Fringe Festival. Media artist Violet Ray, animator Joanna Priestley, and street artists Hyland Mather and Amanda Marie will project works interspersed with video remixes of martial arts classic A Touch of Zen submitted to the Fringe Festival competition. Also on display will be an exhibit of new prints by UO art students. Meet the artists, preview their work, grab food and drinks at the adjoining Barn Light, then join us at the JSMA on Saturday night for the Fringe Festival extravaganza!

 

TRANSIT

6:45 p.m. Bijou Art Cinemas

Tickets: $6 students/seniors, $8 general public

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Transit poster

The Philippines, 2013

Directed by Hannah Espia

Screenplay by Giancarlo Abrahan and Hannah Espia

Cinematography by Ber Cruz and Lyle Sacris

Editing by Benjamin Gonzales Tolentino and Hannah Espia

Music by Mon Espia

Cast: Jasmine Curtis, Marc Justine Alvarez, Ping Medina, Irma Adlawan, Mercedes Cabral

Run Time: 93 minutes

Official-site

 

 

This powerful debut feature from Filipino director Hannah Espia explores the intersecting stories of Filipinos in Tel Aviv when the threat of a law deporting the children of migrant workers looms over their precarious lives. Janet (Adlawan), a domestic worker on an expired visa, struggles to hide her half-Israeli daughter, Yael (Curtis-Smith)—a rebellious teenager caught up in a juvenile romance. Most endangered in the situation is Janet’s four-year old nephew, Joshua (Alvarez), whom Janet and Yael watch over because the boy’s father, Moises (Medina), must work out of town during the week as a caregiver.

Transit is told through multiple characters’ perspectives, producing a multilinear effect in which certain scenes are repeated to reveal different facets of their situations. Oggs Cruz of Twitchfilm describes the film as “a document of fractured identities, an essay that declares the very familiar concepts of citizenship and nationality as shallow facades that are maintained by laws and enforced by borders.” Transit won a slew of Filipino film accolades, among them the Gawad Urian Award and the Golden Screen Award. It was also selected by the Philippines as the official submission for the 2014 Oscar best foreign language film category.

 

BALIKBAYAN #1 (aka MEMORIES OF OVERDEVELOPMENT)

With director Kidlat Tahimik

7:00 p.m., Whitsell Auditorium in the Portland Art Museum, Portland

See here for details. Presented with the Northwest Film Center.

 

CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON

With an introduction by Dr. Kin-yan Szeto

9:15 p.m.  Bijou Metro, 43 West Broadway in Eugene

Tickets: $6 students/seniors, $8 general public

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Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon

‘Taiwanese filmmaker Ang Lee took a break from making Western period dramas to fashion this wild and woolly martial arts spectacular featuring special effects and action sequences courtesy of the choreographer of The Matrix (1999), Yuen Woo Ping. In the early nineteenth century, martial arts master Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat) is about to retire and enter a life of meditation, though he quietly longs to avenge the death of his master, who was killed by Jade Fox (Cheng Pei-pei). He gives his sword, a fabled 400-year-old weapon known as Green Destiny, to his friend, fellow martial arts wizard and secret love Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh), so that she may deliver it to Sir Te (Sihung Lung). Upon arrival in Peking, Yu happens upon Jen (Zhang Ziyi), a vivacious, willful politician’s daughter. That night, a mysterious masked thief swipes Green Destiny, with Yu in hot pursuit—resulting in the first of several martial arts action set pieces during the film. Li arrives in Beijing and eventually discovers that Jen is not only the masked thief but is also in cahoots with the evil Jade. In spite of this, Li sees great talent in Jen as a fighter and offers to school her in the finer points of martial arts and selflessness, an offer that Jen promptly rebukes. This film was first screened to much acclaim at the 2000 Cannes, Toronto, and New York film festivals and became a favorite when Academy Awards nominations were announced in 2001: Tiger snagged ten nods and later secured four wins for Best Cinematography, Score, Art Direction, and Foreign Language Film” (Jonathan Crow, Rovi). Presented in 35mm!