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30 Jan – 9 Feb 2025

Jia Zhangke

JIA Zhangke (1970, China) is a director, screenwriter and producer. He grew up in Fenyang, Shanxi province. He graduated from the film academy in Beijing in 1997. His first feature, Pickpocket (1998), won him awards at film festivals in Berlin, Pusan, Vancouver and others. In 1998, he received support from the Hubert Bals Fund for Platform, which was released in 2000 and nominated for the Golden Lion in Venice. He quickly became a prominent director in the international film scene, with Still Life (2006) winning the Golden Lion and film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum calling him “the most exciting mainland Chinese filmmaker currently working”. In 2015, he was awarded the Golden Coach in Cannes to honour his entire body of work, and the following year he was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at Cairo International Film Festival. Jia is at the forefront of China’s indie cinema and is considered a leading director in the country’s Sixth Generation of filmmakers. In 2017, he founded Pingyao International Film Festival together with Marco Müller. He released his most expensive film to date Ash Is Purest White in 2018. It became his fifth film to be nominated for Cannes’ Golden Palm and earned him Chicago’s Silver Hugo for Best Director. His films often blur the line between fiction and documentary.

Filmography

(selection) Xiaoshan huijia/Xiao Shan Going Home (1995, short), Xiao wu/Pickpocket (1998), Zhantai/Platform (2000), In Public (2001, doc), Gou de zhuang khuang/The Condition of Dogs (2001, short doc), Ren xiao yao/Unknown Pleasures (2002), Shije/The World (2004), Dong (2006, doc), Sanxia haoren/Still Life (2006), Women de shi nian/Ten Years (2007, short), Wu yong/Useless (2007, doc), Er shi si cheng ji/24 City (2008), Heshang de aiqing/Cry Me a River (2008, short), Stories on Human Rights (2008, segment: Black Breakfast), Shia nian/Remembrance (2008, short), Hai shang chuan qi/I Wish I Knew (2010, doc), Yulu (2011, short doc, segment: Cao ), 3.11 Sense of Home (2011, doc, segment: untitled), (Tian zhu ding/A Touch of Sin (2013), Venice 70: Future Reloaded (2013, segment: untitled) Smog Journeys (2015, short), Shan he gu ren/Mountains May Depart (2015), The Hedonists (2016, short), Where Has the Time Gone? (2017, segment: Revive), Ash Is Purest White (2018) Yi ge tong/The Bucket (2019, short), Yi zhi you dao hai shui bian lan/Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue (2020, doc), Lai fang/Visit (2020, short)

More info: Wikipedia, Jia Zhangke

Jia Zhangke at IFFR

  • Dong

    Documentary project that put Jia Zhang-ke on the trail of his film Still Life, which won a Golden Lion. Portrait of the leading Chinese painter Liu Xi

    • Maestros: Kings & Aces

  • Still Life

    Surprising winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. In one of the towns that will disappear under water through the rising waters of the

    • Maestros: Kings & Aces

  • Walking on the Wild Side

    Autobiographically tinted film about the hopelessness of life in a Chinese mining town where the advance of the market economy leads to depressing law

    • Tiger Awards Competition

  • 24 City

    Master chronicler of change in China, Jia Zhang-ke, continues to innovate his style. Documentary flows into fiction. In nine ‘interviews’ we see the s

    • Spectrum

  • Perfect Life

    Winner of the Dragons & Tigers Award in Vancouver is a combination of film styles: an intriguing, fictional portrait of a stubborn young woman who tri

    • Bright Future

  • Ten Years

    A lonely woman and a photographer meet every couple of years on a train and their virtually wordless bond expresses a world of feelings.

    • Short: As Long As It Takes

  • Useless

    Portrait of the unusual Chinese fashion designer Ma Ke, who incorporates the natural process of growth and decay in her clothes. But Jia goes further:

    • Kings & Aces

  • Zhan Tai

    The political and social upheavals in the 1980s, as a consequence of Deng Xiao-ping’s ‘open-door policy’, have their effect on the members of a theatr

    • Hubert Bals Fund

  • Unknown Pleasures

    Contemporary street-corner kids in China make good use of their time, because they want to die young. Before then, Xiao Ji first wants to bed a model;

    • main programme features

  • Memories Look at Me

    A film in which the characters are all themselves and we look on in silence: a daughter with a life of her own in Beijing visits her parents in her bi

    • Bright Future