The RAS is pleased to announce the next film screening: on March 16 we will watch Mountains May Depart, Jia Zhangke's (贾樟柯) 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 to marry and leaves the other to depart Fenyang for good.

In 2014 much is changed. Tao is still in Fenyang while her son Daole (pronounced as Dollar) lives in Shanghai with his father. Daole attends international schools speaking English and Shanghai dialect and calls another woman "mummy". Time fast tracks when Jinsheng escapes the Mainland and takes Dollar to a tomorrow-land in Australia. What life brings them then? May mountains depart or remain?

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 at 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 and was nominated for Best Director, Best Actress and Best Actor Awards at the 68th Cannes International Film Festival in 2015.

We hope you will join us.