CHINA at SUNDANCE

I am sitting at a layover in the Denver airport awaiting our flight to good ol’ Indianapolis.  Instead of writing about all of the films (there are too many!), I’m going to reflect on some of the films that I found especially entertaining, enlightening, or relatable.

Quick list of what I saw through the rest of the week:

Fallen City (World Documentary)

God Loves Uganda (U.S. Documentary)

What They Don’t Talk About When They Talk About Love (World Narrative)

Fruitvale (won grand jury prize for best U.S. Narrative!)

Blood Brother (won grand jury prize and audience award for U.S. Doc!)

Running from Crazy (U.S. Documentary)

This is Martin Bonner (U.S. Narrative)

Kill Your Darlings (U.S. Narrative)

Toy’s House (U.S. Narrative)

I was supposed to see the U.S. Narrative film Circles instead of Fallen City, but Fallen City was THE FILM I had to see at sundance. Luckily it worked out. Every day the box office releases a certain amount of tickets in the morning that are first come first serve, so my friend Nicole and I walked down the mountain from the house at 7:00 am and grabbed a bus to Main Street. We traded our Circles tickets for Fallen City for two bucks and felt super accomplished.

It was a film directed by a Chinese man named Zhao Qi who lives in Beijing.  It followed the stories of three families in the aftermath of the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, China.  That’s the province my Chinese professor grew up in when I studied in Fujian.

It was one of the most fatal earthquakes in China, killing nearly 100,000 people.  Not only did the film give me a glimpse back into Chinese life, but it shared incredibly real stories with beautiful cinematography.  It helped that the director himself was Chinese.  It made the film heartfelt and gave context on how the Chinese react to devastation.

I was able to chat with Zhao Qi after the film and got his email.  I went ahead and threw myself out there and asked that if I was ever in Beijing, if we could meet up and chat about China and film. He responded so nicely and genuinely, so much like many conversations I had with other Chinese in China.  I also spoke to his executive producer who does work getting East Asian films in the limelight, simply because there aren’t as many avenues in that area as of now.  He’s actually Canadian, but whatever.

Whenever Fallen City shows up, check it out!