Films Not to Miss at This Year’s European Union Film Festival
State of the Arts is our regular arts column whereby we take a look at the newest moves in Beijing's creative scene. In this edition, we highlight three exhibitions you should seek out before they conclude.
As has been the case with its past few editions, the 11th edition of the European Union Film Festival (WeChat ID: EUFF28_filmfest) cuts short the wait for those of us who are eager to get their hands on the most buzzed European films of the year. This year is no different and contains a number of films that screened at Cannes Festival, including new works by revered cult filmmakers such as Jean Luc Godard and Lars Von Trier, as well as a number of documentaries which put celebrated artists under the microscope, such fashion designer and activist Vivienne Westwood, director Ingmar Bergman, and late fashion designer Alexander McQueen.
Below is a selection of films that you still have time to catch before the festival closes on Nov 4.
McQueen
(UK, 2018, Documentary, 111’)
Lee Alexander McQueen, the late British fashion designer and couturier, is remembered as a talented and revolutionary creator. His take on fashion was dotted with drama and innovation, pushing boundaries and tearing down pre-established concepts by letting his wild fantasies take over his collections and runway shows. This documentary, written and directed by Ian Bonhote and Peter Ettedgui (marking the first large directorial debut for both directors), has been heralded as one of the most accurate and emotional portrayals of the enfant terrible. By using his most famous collections, and through the accounts of those closest to him, the film celebrates McQueen the artist while revealing the person behind the brand.
Screening prices, times, and venues
RMB 64. Oct 28, 7pm. Poly International Cinema (Tiananmen)
暴力国际影城（天安门店）
RMB 64. Nov 1, 8.40pm; Nov 3, 7pm. Broadway Cinematheque Moma
当代MOMA电影中心店
Le Livre d’Image / The Image book
(Switzerland, France, 2018, Drama, 84’)
Since his ascendance as a pioneer and the most renowned representative of the 1960s French New Wave, Jean Luc Godard has remained a central figure in modern cinema history. Godard has now released more than 120 films, ensuring that his reputation for films that challenge and elaborate on the narrative of cinema precedes him. He has also been monumental in his extensive work on themes that challenge and critique the status quo with regards to filmmaking, politics, economics, and social affairs. As such, The Image Book, billed as "an examination of the modern Arabic world," may just be the director's ultimate bulletin given that it is solely composed of images, a narrator’s voice, and deprived of actors. Instead, the filmmaker uses his craft to inform us that the world he has been warning us about repeatedly throughout his oeuvre has finally arrived.
Screening prices, times, and venues
RMB 84. Nov 2, 6.50pm. Poly International Cinema (Tiananmen)
暴力国际影城（天安门店）
RMB 84. Nov 1, 5.20pm. Lumiere Pavillion
卢米埃影城
The House That Jack Built
(Denmark/France/Germany/Sweden, 2018, Drama/Horror, 155’)
Jack is a serial killer who frames his heinous crimes in an aesthetic discourse that, while it unfolds in a series of incidents that exponentially show the great lengths the main character will go to quench his thirst for beauty/blood, might be too shocking to witness for many viewers. Lars Von Trier returns with his characteristic button-pressing dose of sadism and black humor as well as a splash of breathtaking filmography that reproduces – in a stunning yet visceral and disturbing way – many artistic references to life and death as well as the attitudes toward them. Certainly not for the faint of heart.
Screening prices, times, and venues
RMB 80. Oct 30, 7.30pm; Nov 1, 7.30pm. UCCA
Bergman: A Year in a Life
(Sweden/Norway, 2018, Documentary, 117’)
Another of the most influential filmmakers to have ever lived, Ingmar Bergman's career spanned over six decades, producing some of the most emblematic and profound films ever put to celluloid. This documentary comprises a handful of archival material of the artist, particularly interviews and footage taken from around the time Bergman released two of his most important films: The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries, both in 1957. That most prolific of years also saw the celebrated director release films for TV as well as produce plays for theater. In his films, Bergman often delved deep into the human psyche and its contradictions and entrenched mechanisms, revealing a sensibility and vulnerability through his characters that still resonate powerfully with cinemagoers to this day.
Screening prices, times, and venues
RMB 60. Nov 29, 7.30pm. UCCA
For more info about other films still running at this year's EU Film festival, follow the festival’s official account (ID: EUFF28_filmfest). To purchase tickets, browse the venues via WeChat built-in cinema app via your wallet (猫眼), or in the case of the screenings at the UCCA, go directly to UCCA’s official account (ID: UCCA_Official).
Browse all of Beijing's film happening right here.
Images courtesy of the EU Film Festival
