Filming East Festival 2009
One Foot Off The Ground
Chertsey Hall, Friday 6 November
There are now plenty of high quality new films being produced in China by Chinese film production companies or international co-productions, many of which should be perfectly accessible to Western audiences, and are quite unlike the mostly Hong Kong sourced 'Kung Fu' type movies which many people associate with Chinese film. The Filming East Festival, now in its third year, and supported by Screen South, BAFTA, Bank of China and other bodies, is striving to bring these to the attention of both the film industry and the film viewing public in Britain.
Festival director Sun Xiaoxiao obtained her master's degree in the Media Arts department at Royal Holloway, University of London, so has a sense of connection with the district around Runnymede. This made her particularly keen to see films exhibited in our area during this year's Festival. The other venues in Runnymede were at Royal Holloway itself and Christ Church, Virginia Water. The major 2009 venues in the Southeast were in central London (at the BAFTA film theatre in Piccadilly), Oxford and Chichester (the 'New Park' independent cinema).
Please visit the Filming East Festival website for more information and links to the other venues.
This is an interesting, well-made and amusing film about the mixed fortunes of the members of a traditional Chinese opera troupe who are laid off after their payroll money is stolen. The three male leads must find alternative work - one as a wedding photographer, another as a street peddler of faked pedigree dogs, whilst the third dabbles in the world of cockfighting. The plot follows the strains their new occupations put on their relationships, together with various ups and downs following the re-appearance of the stolen money and the possibility that the troupe may be able to perform again.
The director Chen Daming appears in a brief cameo in the opening scenes - as a coach passenger planning a film about the Jewish population in the fictional town of Daliang. The latter is actually based on the city of Kaifeng in Henan Province - where the director was born. Before opting for a career in film, Chen himself was an opera performer, so he knows his subject well, and the characters in the film are based on his real life friends from that time.
It is partly an affectionate portrait of the world surrounding traditional opera, but is also a well observed view of the dissapearance of many old ways and the relentless pace of social change resulting from China's rapid economic growth.
PG (expected) - 2006 - China - 100 mins approx - Dir: Daming Chen
Language: Mandarin/Henan (with English subtitles)
The Filming East Festival organisers approached Runnymede Borough Council about showing some part of their 2009 festival at a venue in the borough, and the council in turn asked Chertsey Film Society if we could provide the projection facilities - which we did.
The film was originally scheduled to be shown on Monday 12 October 2009, but that had to be cancelled due to a power cut. The screening was re-scheduled and the film eventually shown on Friday 6 November.
Originally screened in China back in 2006, the only other general release of the film was in Singapore in 2008. A DVD version of the film eventually went on sale in the USA early in 2010. It remains to be seen whether a European DVD release will follow.