Columbia University Sponsors Documentary Screenings and Film Talks in Beijing This Week

While the glitziest of China’s film industry walk the red carpet and swan about at various soirees in Shanghai this week, some of the industry’s more cerebral types are putting on a series of screenings and talks over five days right here in Beijing.

Beijing-based film aficionados will be able to run shoulders with prominent Beijing-based scholars, filmmakers and critics as they join academics from Columbia University and Beijing Normal University to discuss documentary cinema at Columbia Global Centers from Wednesday through to Sunday.

Check out the lineup for ‘The Seen and Unseen: New Directions of Documentary Cinema’ here.

Some highlights:

On Friday from 7-9pm, there will be a screening of Our Terrible Country which follows the perilous journey of Yassin al-Haj Saleh, a well-known Syrian intellectual, and Ziad Homsi, a young photographer as they flee war-torn Syria.

On Saturday from 2-3pm, Chinese auteur Jia Zhangke will join a conversation about the past 20 years of Chinese independent cinema. Jia is an icon of the independent movement and is best known for his recent films Touch of Sin (2013) and last year's Mountains May Depart (pictured above).

The Columbia Global Centers are located at Bldg 26, 1/F, Core Plaza, 1 Shanyuan Street, Zhongguancun, Haidian. The events run start Wednesday, June 15, 2016 at 6pm and go through to Sunday, June 19.

Spaces are filling up fast, so be quick!

Photo: miamifilmfestival.com