Up the Yangtze

Last night's closing film at PFA for the SF International Film Festival was the Canadian film Up The Yangtze. This film will open in the Bay Area June 13 for those of you who missed the sold out festival screenings. The film won the Golden Gate best documentary award at SFIFF.

The film was visually stunning, but surprisingly less about the Yangtze and more about the cruise ship and cultural differences of the Chinese workers and American tourists on board than the broader issues of water redistribution in China and what it means politically and economically.

The music was quite wonderful.

Pros: A very talented shooter from Beiing and a fantastic composer from Montreal have put together the elements for a very sophisticated and enjoyable film.

Cons: It may just be different from what you are expecting from a feature doc on Yangtze.

Still LIfe: Chinese Feature Film About Yangtze Dam

Still Life was an Antonioni-like, very sophisticated film about the working class people affected by the dam. It doesn't ever really talk about the dam, as a subject; but we see the impact of the dam in these alienated lives, as people search for other people and an easier life - both of which are elusive.

Trailer

The film will play again in the fall at Pacific Film Archive during a retrospective of director Jia Zhang-ke's works.

See the NY Times review

China and the Environment - Berkeley Conference

It took three months, but the webcast and iTunes podcasts of the best conference I went to last year (ok, second best - the SEJ conference was the best) are now posted on the web.



Berkeley China Initiative: China's Environment

If you want to get started somewhere, try the Ma Jun keynote. But then again all the keynotes are great.

Money for Your Film - Online!

Here is the link of the month:

http://www.scottkirsner.com/webvid/gettingpaid.htm

How to get money for your video online...indispensable guide.

It's been tragic, since Google Video's pay for video service has been gone. Not one of these players is offering anything quite as easy and good as the defunct Google service did, but...at least you can distribute a film online.

I am going to try using Amazon's service to distribute a friend's firefighters training film. Will keep you posted.

Yangtze Films

The film festival is still showing two films about the Yangtze, one doc, one feature.

Here's the doc trailer



This will be released commercially in U.S. It's by a Chinese Canadian, funded by National Film Board of Canada.

Green Docs at SF Film Festival

Three new films from the local film festival this week on green topics...I am also going to see few more on environmental topics on the Yangtze (one sold out doc titled Up the Yangtze which will be released commercially in the U.S., and one Chinese feature called Still Life) and will post more about those later.

Ice People - You know all those pumped up Anderson Cooper Planet in Peril jacked up feel bad TV shows on the environment? If you want the antidote, try Ice People. Does it try to persuade you to do or think anything? No. I call it the "Anti-Anderson" (as in Cooper).

Ice People is like a Zen simplicity experiment, calmly following some scientists who live in tents in Antarctica during a summer there, collecting geological samples. Theirs is a pretty simple life. There's tents, radio phones, and digging. Oh, and sky. If you were a geologist, this is what it all comes down to. Good to know.

See the trailer on the film's web site (no youtube trailer yet)

Pros: Some incredibly beautiful dreamlike shots of Antarctica
Cons: A few mundane moments (which you understand show real life, not like reality tv life)

Flow: For Love of Water

This is a film that does jack you up, you cry, you get upset about water rights, and poor people, and isn't it terrible, and then you don't know what to do. Luckily the screening I went to at Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley featured the main activist behind the film, who offered some intelligent analysis and discussion after the film. But, otherwise, I felt sad. We must get people rilled up - but then provide outlets for that aroused emotion. Otherwise, you do go toward despondency, an emotion we can not afford. Films need to raise emotion and then channel it - or at least films like this do.

Pros: you'll find out about some water rights struggles you probably didn't know about before.
Cons: you will have to read more to understand what is really going on and find out how to channel your energy into action.

Dust



Dust is very German film about what could also be described as a very German obsession - but we in the rest of the world also devote a lot of our lives to dust, as well. I loved this film because it takes you from the banal - a housewife's battles, vacuum cleaner manufacturers' factory - to the sublime - artists painting cosmic dust from NASA photos, dust from comets - and beyond. Dust becomes a transcendent statement about the universe, pollution and daily life. You will never vacuum your house the same way again after seeing this movie.

The film also brings in uranium dust, gold dust...it's vistas are endless as a comment into life and dust. You start to think life's not ashes to ashes but dust to dust.

Pros: Fascinating
Cons: None, really - although Variety certainly considered it a bit dry

NY Times review of Dust
The SF International Film Festival's trailer for the film has English subtitles (versus the YouTube trailer, which is in German).