Jia Zhangke Movies, TV Shows, and Filmography
Jia Zhangke
Directing
Biography
Jia Zhangke (Chinese: 贾樟柯; pinyin: Jiǎ Zhāngkē, born 24 May 1970; Fenyang) is a Chinese film and television director, screenwriter, producer, actor and writer. He is the dean of the Shanxi Film Academy of Shanxi Media College and the dean of the Vancouver Film School of Shanghai University. He graduated from the Literature Department of Beijing Film Academy. He is generally regarded as a leading figure of the "Sixth Generation" movement of Chinese cinema, a group that also includes such figures as Wang Xiaoshuai, Lou Ye, Wang Quan'an and Zhang Yuan. Jia's early films, a loose trilogy based in his home province of Shanxi, were made outside of China's state-run film bureaucracy, and therefore are considered "underground" films. Beginning in 2004, Jia's status in his own country rose when he was allowed to direct his fourth feature film, The World, with state approval. Jia's films have received critical praise and have been recognized internationally, notably winning the Venice Film Festival's top award Golden Lion for Still Life. He received the Leopard of Honour at the Locarno Film Festival in 2010, the Carrosse d'Or lifetime achievement award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015, and an honorary award at the Visions du Réel in 2024. Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek hailed him as "one of the top directors in the world today.".
Filmography Movies
Acting
The Great Director
The closing film for 2021's Pingyao Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon International Film Festival.
Art College 1994
In the 1990s, a group of students on the campus of the Chinese Southern Academy of Arts are pursuing their studies and preparing to face the world. China is opening up to the West and the students’ lives are a tangle of love stories and friendships, artistic research, ideals and ambitions brought about by new influences. Caught between tradition and modernity, they have to decide who they want to become.
Jia Zhangke, A Guy from Fenyang
Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke returns to the shooting locations of his films, along with his actors, friends and close collaborators. Jia recalls the inspiration sources for his movies, such as Platform, Still Life and A Touch of Sin. The film is the memory of a filmmaker and of a country in convulsion, China, which reveals itself little by little.
The Continent
Three men living in the Eastern most island of China go on a road trip to the Western most end of the country, and facing crises of love, friendship, and faith on their journey to the West.
Karmic Mahjong
Chen Chuan (Francis Ng) is a simple man who seems to be cursed with bad luck all the time. Convinced by a blind fortune teller that he must eliminate the "villain" that is bringing him the ills, Chen vows to kill the person responsible for his misfortunes. But he soon has second thoughts when he suspect that the "villain" is none other than his own wife.
Boundless
As Hong Kong's foremost filmmaker, Johnnie To himself becomes the protagonist of this painstaking documentary exploring him and his Boundless world of film. A film student from Beijing and avid Johnnie To fan, Ferris Lin boldly approached To with a proposal to document the master director for his graduation thesis. To agreed immediately and Lin's camera closely followed him for over two years, capturing the man behind the movies and the myths. The result is Boundless, a candid profile of one of Hong Kong's greatest directors and a heartfelt love letter to Hong Kong cinema.
Black Dog
On the edge of the Gobi desert in Northwest China, Lang returns to his hometown after being released from jail. While working for the local dog patrol team to clear the town of stray dogs before the Olympic Games, he strikes up an unlikely connection with a black dog. These two lonely souls embark on a journey together.
Flowers of Taipei: Taiwan New Cinema
With Taiwan remaining in the grip of martial law in 1982, a group of filmmakers from that country set out to establish a cultural identity through cinema and to share it with the world. This engaging documentary looks at the movement's legacy.
About Cinema
An abandoned tumbledown theater in the outback of Paraíba state is the initial setting of a film about cinema, which explores the testimonials of the novelist and playwright Ariano Suassuna and other filmmakers such as Ruy Guerra, Julio Bressane, Ken Loach, Andrzej Wajda, Karim Ainouz, José Padilha, Hector Babenco, Vilmos Zsigmond, Béla Tarr, Gus Van Sant and Jia Zhangke. They all respond to two basic questions: why do they make movies and why do they serve the seventh art. The filmmakers share their thoughts about time, narrative, rhythm, light, movement, the meaning of tragedy, the audience‘s desires and the boundaries with other forms of art.
A Touch of Sin
Four people in different provinces are driven to violent ends: An angry miner is enraged by corruption in his village. A migrant discovers the possibilities of owning a firearm. A receptionist is pushed beyond her limits by an abusive client. A young factory worker goes from one job to the next.
Production
Still Life
A town in Fengjie county is gradually being demolished and flooded to make way for the Three Gorges Dam. A man and woman visit the town to locate their estranged spouses, and become witness to the societal changes.
Still Life
A town in Fengjie county is gradually being demolished and flooded to make way for the Three Gorges Dam. A man and woman visit the town to locate their estranged spouses, and become witness to the societal changes.
A Song for You
In A Song for You – a road movie and a music industry insider comedy, with lots of songs – young Ngawang leaves behind a nomadic existence on the Tibetan plateau for big city Lhasa nightclubs. His dream is to record an album and be heard around the country. Cutting an album costs money, which he doesn’t have. One day he meets a woman who looks just like his Loyiter, a talisman of the goddess of art and music. Impossible, says his father, as only the pure of heart meet her, only in their dreams. But, Ngawang perseveres. She takes him on a journey of discovery through life and love.
The World
At Beijing World Park, a bizarre cross-pollination of Las Vegas and Epcot Center where visitors can interact with famous international monuments without ever leaving the city’s suburbs, a security guard betrays his dancer girlfriend by pursuing another woman.
The World
At Beijing World Park, a bizarre cross-pollination of Las Vegas and Epcot Center where visitors can interact with famous international monuments without ever leaving the city’s suburbs, a security guard betrays his dancer girlfriend by pursuing another woman.
24 City
As a decades-old state-run aeronautics munitions factory in downtown Chengdu, China is being torn down for the construction of the titular luxury apartment complex, director Jia Zhangke interviews various people affiliated with it about their experiences.
24 City
As a decades-old state-run aeronautics munitions factory in downtown Chengdu, China is being torn down for the construction of the titular luxury apartment complex, director Jia Zhangke interviews various people affiliated with it about their experiences.
24 City
As a decades-old state-run aeronautics munitions factory in downtown Chengdu, China is being torn down for the construction of the titular luxury apartment complex, director Jia Zhangke interviews various people affiliated with it about their experiences.
Memoria
After hearing a loud ‘bang’ at daybreak, a Scottish woman begins experiencing a mysterious sensory syndrome while traversing the jungles of Colombia.
Peacock, Peacock
Yi Yi, a white-collar worker in a lattice room, and Ah Juan, a female worker in a garment factory, are separated by a wall in a Dongguan factory. They do not know each other, and seem to have no relationship with each other's fate, but because of the appearance of a "peacock", seems to have intersected. The two girls' souls meet and make their own answers to life on their own way to chase their ideals. The story is adapted from the song "Peacock" by the band Frog Pond, paying tribute to every woman who also carries ideals in the midst of the ordinary.
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