2017 LACFF Feature Film Competition Lineup Preview
Here are the 3 films that will compete in the Feature Film category in the inaugural Los Angeles Chinese Film Festival:
The Last Painting
The Last Painting is aTaiwanese film that has competed in the International Film Festival Rotterdam. The film is confident, bold, and fearless. Through the death of a female college student, the film reflects on the contemporary taiwanese social climate. It examines the social issues surrounding events in recent taiwanese memory including the Sunflower Student Movement, defunct factory workers’ protests, the Chou Tzu-yu flag controversy, the Xi-Ma Meeting, and the presidential election. With its refreshing visuals, The Last Painting’s otherwise heavy themes are overlaid with a fantastical element, at the same time lending a sense of surrealism to its central subject of a youthful death.
Buy the ticket here.
King of Peking
King of Peking is the one film in this competition that combines both Eastern and Western points of view, and is one of the few to feature comedic elements. The film’s director, Sam Voutas, was born in Australia and grew up in China. King of Peking exudes 80’s and 90’s nostalgia; its cinematography, editing, and performances are extremely dynamic, and it also features tight pacing and a unique perspective. Director Voutas constructs a fairytale-like world where the realism of details becomes unimportant, and he effectively captures a father and his son’s most beautiful dreams about cinema.
Buy your ticket here.
Crested Ibis
Crested Ibis, the winner of the Golden George Prize for best film at the Moscow International Film Festival, was also selected to be a part of the Fiction Features Competition. In the film, the reunion of childhood companions reveals the difficulties of rural life, and provides a stark contrast between the mindsets and morals of urban intellectuals and villagers. As the saying goes, “get rich or die trying” — rural workers who move to find jobs in big cities are more common than ever, and flocking to urban areas can no longer guarantee one’s success. The compromise reached at the end of the film, while perhaps overly optimistic, does not overshadow the film’s unique sense of quietude. A detail worth noting is film’s flashbacks of a teacher who had passed away; with the use of sequences that are surreal yet simple and clean, the film’s treatment of the flashbacks is filled with personality and even enhances the overall impact of the story.
Buy your ticket here.
Los Angeles Chinese Film Festival is LA’s premier film festival with a focus on Chinese independent cinema. Inaugural edition starts on November 17–19 2017 at The Downtown Independent. Please check our films lineup, schedule, and buy the tickets here. Check our website and follow / like us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
