Talking Entertainment: Your Weekend Guide to Arts

The Bookworm Literary Festival finally kicks off tonight with an opening talk by author Lionel Shriver. Shriver, who’s pretty much branded herself as a difficult interview, was kind enough to answer a few questions for the Beijinger. You can read her thoughts on being an expat writer here. We’re also excited about Anne Witchard’s discussion on Lao She in London tomorrow night. That will be followed by the one act play, Ding, written for the stage by Paul French. Read our interview with Witchard to get some background on Chinese author Lao She and his time in London during the early 20th century.

Along with BLF, JUE Festival is getting underway. They’ve got quite an exciting market planned on Sunday, which includes live music, beer, food, art and tons more. We have the details about that here. Along with the market, a couple of JUE film screenings are taking place next week. Koryo Cinema will be showing the North Korean film Wish on Tuesday and the much-hyped hip-hop documentary, Mongolian Bling screens at Yugong Yishan on Thursday.

In other film news, Dada just announced that after a scheduling mishap last month, they’re Monday screenings are back. The movie night, which includes free popcorn, gets switched on (and turned up to 11) on Monday with a showing of everyone’s favorite rock ‘n’ roll flick, This is Spinal Tap.

And let’s not forget that today is Women’s Day. In that vein, local artist Audrey Salmon is opening a new exhibition tomorrow. Her collection, Memory Doll, will examine the plurality of women with some pretty provocative imagery on display at C5 gallery in Sanlitun. Salmon is also a co-founder of the newly formed events agency Kaiguan Culture. This group of well-established artists will be working hard to launch events that spread contemporary culture between China and the rest of the world. We’re looking forward to seeing what they have in store.