January
06
NYFCC awards dGenerate Films / “A New Old Play,” “Blue Island”
 The dGenerate Collection at Icarus Films Special Award 2022“For invaluable work bringing independent films from China to a wider audience,” the dGenerate Collection at Icarus Films has received a 2022 Special Award from the New York Film Critics Circle. |
| Two dGenerate Films new releases are topping Best Films year-end lists: Blue Island by Chan Tze Woon, which has qualified for the Academy Awards in the Best Documentary category, and A New Old Play by Qiu Jiongjiong, just named among the best films of the year by The New Yorker. Bring them to your audience today! Book with Bob Hunter, Director of Exhibition |
| Best Documentary qualified, Academy Awards 2023 Best Film, HotDocs Film Festival 2022 “Impossible to watch ‘Blue Island’ without admiring their courage.” —Ben Kenigsberg, The New York Times“Innovative and affecting!” —Richard Kuipers, VarietyBLUE ISLAND A film by Chan Tze WoonAbout Blue Island The large-scale 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and the subsequent crackdown on freedoms provide the urgent anchoring point for this remarkable vision from HK filmmaker Chan Tze Woon, a genre-defying plunge into the political morass that has been ever-widening between the former colony and the controlling Chinese state. Taking a panoramic view of these fractures, and covering acts of resistance from 1967 to today, Chan mixes documentary footage and fictional recreations of the past starring contemporary student protestors (many awaiting prison sentencing for speaking out). Blue Island is an accomplishment of both political bravery and aesthetic daring, a film about the cyclical nature of history and the people who live within the folds of time, constantly on the edge of revolution.Blue Island A film by Chan Tze Woon. Hong Kong/Japan/Taiwan, 97 minutes, 2022, In Chinese with English subtitles. Part of the dGenerate Collection at Icarus Films. An Icarus Films release. “Daringly and imaginatively dramatizes twentieth-century Chinese political history.” —Richard Brody, The New Yorker “NYT Critic’s Pick! Magnificently layered… breathes new life into a story as old as civilization.” —Austin Considine, The New York TimesA NEW OLD PLAY A film by Qiu JiongjiongAbout A New Old Play The first fictional feature by contemporary artist Qiu Jiongjiong, A New Old Play is a magnificent achievement – profoundly personal, highly stylized, and thrillingly ambitious in its historical sweep and filmic scale. It’s an evocation of a lost world, and of a vanishing theatrical form – 20th-century Sichuan opera – whose conventions it lovingly and meticulously recreates via hand-crafted, patently artificial sets, props, and backdrops. Inspired by the story of Qiu’s own grandfather, A New Old Playdepicts the life (and afterlife) of Qiu Fu, a leading actor of Sichuan opera, over the course of many decades and numerous social and political upheavals. Calling to mind Jia Zhangke’s Platform, but adopting a radically different style and sensibility, A New Old Play is a visual feast and a film of great humor and disarming emotional power. –Anthology Film ArchivesA New Old Play A film by Qiu Jiongjiong. Hong Kong/France, 179 minutes, 16:9, 2021, In Chinese with English subtitles. Part of the dGenerate Collection at Icarus Films. An Icarus Films release. About the dGenerate Collection at Icarus Films dGenerate Films was established in 2008 by a team of filmmakers and innovators who proudly take their name from Chinese cinema’s digitally-driven visionaries: the d-Generation. dGenerate Films is led and curated by the award-winning film producer and educator Karin Chien. The dGenerate Collection at Icarus Films includes more than 70 independent films from mainland China and Hong Kong. Browse the dGenerate Collection at Icarus Films Click to browse dG documentary films and dG narrative films. |
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