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Writer-director Jia Zhangke (贾樟柯) is "one of the contemporary world's great filmmakers". A native of Fengyang, Shanxi Province he debuted his feature film Xiao Wu, the Pickpocket in 1997, a masterpiece hailed by the French critics as "the one that showed the revival and vigor of Chinese films". In 2006 his film Still Life was awarded Golden Lion at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival. Jia is at the forefront of China's indie cinema and a leading figure in China's sixth generation of filmmaking. The RAS film club screened his "A Touch of Sin" in October 2020. On 30 March we will watch "Mountains May Depart", Jia Zhangke's 8th feature film which competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.



In 1999, the young shopkeeper Tao in Fenyang, Shanxi province finds herself in a love-triangle between Liangzi, a roughly handsome, taciturn mine worker, and Jinsheng, a glad-handling, nouveau riche gas station owner. Tao showing affection for Liangzi sets off a confrontation between her two suitors. Tao has to choose one and makes the other heartbreak and leaves town for good.


Time flies to 2014 in a world where much is changed. Tao's son is named "Dollar" and her family drifts between Shanxi and Shanghai ...

Godfrey Cheshire, a film critic with Roger Ebert reviewed that "Jia has evinced a confidence and a seriousness of purpose that are on fine display in Mountains May Depart, … (an) intimate journey through history that is as stirring and beautifully nuanced as anything he's made". Manohla Dargis with the New York Times commented that " few filmmakers working today look as deeply at the changing world as Mr. Jia does. … While he invariably addresses larger cultural, social and political issues, … what makes his work memorable is how those larger forces are etched in the faces and bodies of his characters…" The film won Best Original Screenplay Award at the 52nd Golden Horse Awards in Taiwan in 2015 and was nominated for Best Director, Best Actress and Best Actor Awards at the 68th Cannes International Film Festival of the same year.


Film: Mountains May Depart

  • Written and directed by: Jia Zhangke (贾樟柯)
  • Cinematographer: Yu Lik Wai( 余力为)
  • Starring:
  • Zhao Tao (赵涛)
  • Zhang Yi (张译)
  • Liang Jingdong (梁景东)
  • Sylvia Chang (张艾嘉)
  • Language: Mandarin Chinese with English subtitles, English

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