I WISH I KNEW
a film by JIA ZHANG KE
Cast: Zhao Tao, Lim Giong
Year: 2010
Running time: 118 Minutes
Language: Mandarin
Official selection
Un Certain Regard 2010
Opening across Canada
Nov 11, 2010
a film by JIA ZHANG KE
Cast: Zhao Tao, Lim Giong
Year: 2010
Running time: 118 Minutes
Language: Mandarin
Official selection
Un Certain Regard 2010
Opening across Canada
Nov 11, 2010
SHORT SYNOPSIS:
Examined Life takes philosophy out of the darkened corners of academia and into the hustle and bustle of the everyday, a visual reminder that great ideas are born through profound engagement with the world around us.
Featuring the “rock star” philosophers of our time, including Cornel West, Peter Singer, Slavoj Zizek, Judith Butler, Avital Ronell, Michael Hardt, Anthony Appiah and Martha Nussbaum.
Long Synopsis
UPCOMING SCREENINGS:
Cinematheque Winnipeg - March 4 & 5 @ 7pm, 2009
Cinema Village, NYC - Opens March 6 (1:15 PM 3:15 PM 5:20 PM 7:20 PM 9:20 PM)
Pacific Cinematheque - March 20 - 25, 2009
Cinema du Parc, Montreal, March 23 - 26 @ 9pm
Bytowne Cinema - March 22 - 25, 2009
Broadway Theatre, Saskatoon - March 9 - 12, 2009
Art Gallery of Hamilton - March 25, 2009
Cinecenta, Victoria - April 1 & 2, 2009
Cinema du Parc, Montreal - April 3 - 9
Regina Public Library, Regina, SK - April 4 & 5, 2009
Metro Cinema, Edmonton, April 18 - 20, 2009
View screenings in the United States, courtesy Zeitgeist Films!
View complete Showtimes for all films!
PREVIOUS SCREENINGS:
The Royal, Toronto - Opening Jan 23, 2009 - EXTENDED TO FEB 5th!
Friday @ 7, Saturday @ 7, Sunday @ 4:30 & 7, Monday @ 7, Tuesday @ 7 & 9:30, Wednesday @ 7, Thursday @ 7 & 9
(Panel follows Jan. 27, 7pm screening, on the intersection of public space & intellectual pursuits, featuring Astra Taylor, Jane Farrow, Deborah Cowen, Kanishka Goonewardena and Doug Hutchinson. Filmmaker Q&A on Sat, Sun & Mon.
Kingsway Theatre, Toronto: Jan 30 - Feb 5, 2009 - Nightly at 9pm - 2nd Theatre Added!
Regent Theatre, Toronto: Feb. 6 - 12, 2009
Western Arctic Moving Pictures Film Festival, Feb. 8, 2009 - 7pm
City Cinema, Charlottetown - Feb 11 - 15, 2009
Port Moody, B.C. Film Festival - Feb. 12 - 21, 2009
View complete Showtimes for all films!
Examined Life takes philosophy out of the darkened corners of academia and into the hustle and bustle of the everyday, a visual reminder that great ideas are born through profound engagement with the world around us.
Long Synopsis
UPCOMING SCREENINGS:
Cinematheque Winnipeg - March 4 & 5 @ 7pm, 2009
Cinema Village, NYC - Opens March 6 (1:15 PM 3:15 PM 5:20 PM 7:20 PM 9:20 PM)
Pacific Cinematheque - March 20 - 25, 2009
Cinema du Parc, Montreal, March 23 - 26 @ 9pm
Bytowne Cinema - March 22 - 25, 2009
Broadway Theatre, Saskatoon - March 9 - 12, 2009
Art Gallery of Hamilton - March 25, 2009
Cinecenta, Victoria - April 1 & 2, 2009
Cinema du Parc, Montreal - April 3 - 9
Regina Public Library, Regina, SK - April 4 & 5, 2009
Metro Cinema, Edmonton, April 18 - 20, 2009
View screenings in the United States, courtesy Zeitgeist Films!
View complete Showtimes for all films!
PREVIOUS SCREENINGS:
The Royal, Toronto - Opening Jan 23, 2009 - EXTENDED TO FEB 5th!
Friday @ 7, Saturday @ 7, Sunday @ 4:30 & 7, Monday @ 7, Tuesday @ 7 & 9:30, Wednesday @ 7, Thursday @ 7 & 9
(Panel follows Jan. 27, 7pm screening, on the intersection of public space & intellectual pursuits, featuring Astra Taylor, Jane Farrow, Deborah Cowen, Kanishka Goonewardena and Doug Hutchinson. Filmmaker Q&A on Sat, Sun & Mon.
Kingsway Theatre, Toronto: Jan 30 - Feb 5, 2009 - Nightly at 9pm - 2nd Theatre Added!
Regent Theatre, Toronto: Feb. 6 - 12, 2009
Western Arctic Moving Pictures Film Festival, Feb. 8, 2009 - 7pm
City Cinema, Charlottetown - Feb 11 - 15, 2009
Port Moody, B.C. Film Festival - Feb. 12 - 21, 2009
View complete Showtimes for all films!
SYNOPSIS:
Shanghai, a fast-changing metropolis, a port city where people come and go.
Shanghai has hosted all kinds of people – revolutionaries, capitalists, politicians, soldiers, artists, and gangsters. Shanghai has also hosted revolutions, assassinations, love stories.
After the Chinese Communists’ victory in 1949, thousands of Shanghaiers left for Hong Kong and Taiwan. To leave meant being separated from home for thirty years; to stay meant suffering through the Cultural Revolution and China’s other political disasters.
Eighteen people from these three cities - Shanghai, Taipei and Hong Kong - recall their lives in Shanghai. Their personal experiences, like eighteen chapters of a novel, tell stories of Shanghai lives from the 1930s to 2010.
An eternally wandering soul returns to Shanghai and, walking along the banks of the Huangpu River, awakens to all the changes the city has undergone.
About the Director:
Jia Zhang-Ke was born in 1970 in Fenyang, Shanxi Province of China. He was graduated from Beijing Film Academy and made his first feature film Xiao Wu in 1998. He is now settled in Beijing and actively involved in filmmaking over China. His Still Life won the Golden Lion Award (Best Film) of 63rd Venice International Film Festival in 2006.
Director's Note:
After examining China’s historic changes through my films for over a decade, I’ve developed a growing interest in history. It has dawned on me that the causes of almost all of the problems facing contemporary China can be found taking shape in the depths of its history.
In mainland China as well as in Taiwan, the true nature of many events in China’s modern history has long been hidden, blocked from view by those in power. Like an orphan anxious to learn the truth about where he comes from, I felt an urgency to learn just what lies behind the familiar official historical narratives. What in fact have individuals really experienced?
So I came to Shanghai with my movie camera and traced the footsteps of Shanghaiers who left this city for Taiwan and Hong Kong. Shanghai is closely tied to the lives of almost every important historic figure in the modern history of China. And events of national significance in the life of the city also destined Shanghaiers for lives of painful, life-long separation.
I hope that I Wish I Knew can transcend party politics (whether it be the Communist Party of China or Taiwan’s Nationalist KMT) and directly touch the sufferings of the Chinese people.
A complicated lexicon of historical terms is inscribed on Shanghai’s history: from «colony» in the 19th century to «revolutionary» in the 20th; from 1949’s «liberation» through the «cultural revolution» of 1966 to 1978’s «reform» and Pudong’s «opening up» in 1990.
What I care about, however, is what lies behind these abstract terms: the individuals buffeted by politics, and details of their lives forgotten by time.
When I sat face-to-face with characters in my film, and listened to them talk ever so calmly about the hair-raising events in their pasts, I suddenly realized what it was that I captured with my camera: - “a dream of freedom” twinkling in their eyes.
This moved me to tears.
UPCOMING SCREENINGS!
PREVIOUS SCREENINGS:
Toronto International Film Festival
Wednesday September 15 @ 9:45PM - SCOTIABANK THEATRE 4
Friday September 17 @ 5:00PM - JACKMAN HALL - AGO
Vancouver International Film Festival: Buy Tix Online!
Tue, Oct 5th 9:00pm - Empire Granville 7 Th 3
Wed, Oct 6th 11:40am - Empire Granville 7 Th 3
Regina Public Library: Nov 4 - 7, 2010
TIFF Bell Lightbox, Toronto: Nov 11 - 25, 2010
HELD OVER!
Daily: 1pm, 4pm and 6:45p
Carlton Cinema, Toronto: Nov 19 - 25, 2010
Daily at 1:40, 4:20, 6:55, 9:25
Bloor Cinema, Toronto: Dec 12 - 14
Shanghai, a fast-changing metropolis, a port city where people come and go.
Shanghai has hosted all kinds of people – revolutionaries, capitalists, politicians, soldiers, artists, and gangsters. Shanghai has also hosted revolutions, assassinations, love stories.
After the Chinese Communists’ victory in 1949, thousands of Shanghaiers left for Hong Kong and Taiwan. To leave meant being separated from home for thirty years; to stay meant suffering through the Cultural Revolution and China’s other political disasters.
Eighteen people from these three cities - Shanghai, Taipei and Hong Kong - recall their lives in Shanghai. Their personal experiences, like eighteen chapters of a novel, tell stories of Shanghai lives from the 1930s to 2010.
An eternally wandering soul returns to Shanghai and, walking along the banks of the Huangpu River, awakens to all the changes the city has undergone.
About the Director:
Jia Zhang-Ke was born in 1970 in Fenyang, Shanxi Province of China. He was graduated from Beijing Film Academy and made his first feature film Xiao Wu in 1998. He is now settled in Beijing and actively involved in filmmaking over China. His Still Life won the Golden Lion Award (Best Film) of 63rd Venice International Film Festival in 2006.
Director's Note:
After examining China’s historic changes through my films for over a decade, I’ve developed a growing interest in history. It has dawned on me that the causes of almost all of the problems facing contemporary China can be found taking shape in the depths of its history.
In mainland China as well as in Taiwan, the true nature of many events in China’s modern history has long been hidden, blocked from view by those in power. Like an orphan anxious to learn the truth about where he comes from, I felt an urgency to learn just what lies behind the familiar official historical narratives. What in fact have individuals really experienced?
So I came to Shanghai with my movie camera and traced the footsteps of Shanghaiers who left this city for Taiwan and Hong Kong. Shanghai is closely tied to the lives of almost every important historic figure in the modern history of China. And events of national significance in the life of the city also destined Shanghaiers for lives of painful, life-long separation.
I hope that I Wish I Knew can transcend party politics (whether it be the Communist Party of China or Taiwan’s Nationalist KMT) and directly touch the sufferings of the Chinese people.
A complicated lexicon of historical terms is inscribed on Shanghai’s history: from «colony» in the 19th century to «revolutionary» in the 20th; from 1949’s «liberation» through the «cultural revolution» of 1966 to 1978’s «reform» and Pudong’s «opening up» in 1990.
What I care about, however, is what lies behind these abstract terms: the individuals buffeted by politics, and details of their lives forgotten by time.
When I sat face-to-face with characters in my film, and listened to them talk ever so calmly about the hair-raising events in their pasts, I suddenly realized what it was that I captured with my camera: - “a dream of freedom” twinkling in their eyes.
This moved me to tears.
UPCOMING SCREENINGS!
PREVIOUS SCREENINGS:
Toronto International Film Festival
Wednesday September 15 @ 9:45PM - SCOTIABANK THEATRE 4
Friday September 17 @ 5:00PM - JACKMAN HALL - AGO
Vancouver International Film Festival: Buy Tix Online!
Tue, Oct 5th 9:00pm - Empire Granville 7 Th 3
Wed, Oct 6th 11:40am - Empire Granville 7 Th 3
Regina Public Library: Nov 4 - 7, 2010
TIFF Bell Lightbox, Toronto: Nov 11 - 25, 2010
HELD OVER!
Daily: 1pm, 4pm and 6:45p
Carlton Cinema, Toronto: Nov 19 - 25, 2010
Daily at 1:40, 4:20, 6:55, 9:25
Bloor Cinema, Toronto: Dec 12 - 14
I Wish I Knew (Trailer) from filmswelike on Vimeo.
