Fortissimo Films has secured international rights to upcoming Chinese feature Escape From The 21st Century and will launch sales at Toronto in September.
The Amsterdam and Beijing-based sales company has landed rights to the action sci-fi feature ahead of its local release, which Chinese distributor Enlight Pictures today revealed is set for August 3.
The story follows three friends who discover they have the power to travel back and forth 20 years with a sneeze. However, the future is not as good as they hoped and need to take on the responsibility of saving the world.
Produced by Scity Films, it marks...
The Amsterdam and Beijing-based sales company has landed rights to the action sci-fi feature ahead of its local release, which Chinese distributor Enlight Pictures today revealed is set for August 3.
The story follows three friends who discover they have the power to travel back and forth 20 years with a sneeze. However, the future is not as good as they hoped and need to take on the responsibility of saving the world.
Produced by Scity Films, it marks...
- 6/26/2024
- ScreenDaily
By Neil Pedley
This week, our cup runneth over with a "Karate Kid" knockoff, a shot-for-shot remake and more documentaries than Michael Moore can shake an overpriced hot dog at.
"Blind Mountain"
The recipient of plenty of acclaim at last year's Cannes Film Festival, director Li Yang has a casual yet immediate style that's been touted as something of a Chinese answer to Ken Loach. "Blind Mountain" offers an uncomfortable but powerful indictment of China's one child policy and the sex trade that has flourished under it. The film follows the desperate struggle of a young woman who accepts a job in a remote mountain village, only to discover that she has unwittingly been sold into marriage as a slave.
Opens in New York.
"Doomsday"
Before anyone had heard of Angelina Jolie, model-turned-actress Rhona Mitra was the original face of "Tomb Raider"'s Lara Croft. Ten years later, she's traded...
This week, our cup runneth over with a "Karate Kid" knockoff, a shot-for-shot remake and more documentaries than Michael Moore can shake an overpriced hot dog at.
"Blind Mountain"
The recipient of plenty of acclaim at last year's Cannes Film Festival, director Li Yang has a casual yet immediate style that's been touted as something of a Chinese answer to Ken Loach. "Blind Mountain" offers an uncomfortable but powerful indictment of China's one child policy and the sex trade that has flourished under it. The film follows the desperate struggle of a young woman who accepts a job in a remote mountain village, only to discover that she has unwittingly been sold into marriage as a slave.
Opens in New York.
"Doomsday"
Before anyone had heard of Angelina Jolie, model-turned-actress Rhona Mitra was the original face of "Tomb Raider"'s Lara Croft. Ten years later, she's traded...
- 3/10/2008
- by Neil Pedley
- ifc.com
MTV China to air 'Traffic' docu
HONG KONG -- MTV China is set to launch a campaign against human trafficking with a 30-minute documentary film presented by Hong Kong pop star Karen Mok, MTV Asia said Friday in Hong Kong.
The documentary "Traffic", which premiered Friday in Beijing, is part of MTV's End Exploitation and Trafficking, or EXIT, initiative to raise awareness about and promote the prevention of sex trafficking and forced prostitution, forced labor and domestic servitude.
"Human trafficking is a growing problem that is affecting millions of young people from Asia and around the world," MTV Exit director Simon Goff said. "Many of the victims fall within MTV's 16-24 demographic, which makes the MTV Exit campaign particularly relevant to the MTV's youth audience."
Human trafficking and slavery are difficult topics to present to Asian audiences. "Blind Mountain", a feature film by Li Yang about a university student kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery was cut at least 20 times before Chinese censors allowed it to travel to the Cannes Film Festival in May (HR 5/20).
The documentary "Traffic", which premiered Friday in Beijing, is part of MTV's End Exploitation and Trafficking, or EXIT, initiative to raise awareness about and promote the prevention of sex trafficking and forced prostitution, forced labor and domestic servitude.
"Human trafficking is a growing problem that is affecting millions of young people from Asia and around the world," MTV Exit director Simon Goff said. "Many of the victims fall within MTV's 16-24 demographic, which makes the MTV Exit campaign particularly relevant to the MTV's youth audience."
Human trafficking and slavery are difficult topics to present to Asian audiences. "Blind Mountain", a feature film by Li Yang about a university student kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery was cut at least 20 times before Chinese censors allowed it to travel to the Cannes Film Festival in May (HR 5/20).
- 9/22/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
'Shaft' tops at Tribeca fest
NEW YORK -- Blind Shaft, the piercing indictment of the Chinese mining industry from first-time director Li Yang, took home the top narrative feature Sunday night as the Tribeca Film Festival wrapped up its second year with a ceremony that meted out 11 awards. Two films won the Budweiser/TriggerStreet.com Audience Award for Best Feature: David G. Berger, Holly Maxson, and Kate Hirson's Keeping Time: The Life, Music & Photographs of Milt Hinton, a portrait of the bass player/photographer; and Chen Kaige's Together, a Chinese story about a father and his son, a young violin prodigy, who move from their rural hometown to Beijing to study with a master teacher.
- 5/12/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Blind Shaft (Mang Jing)
Tang Splendour Films, BronzeAge Films
BERLIN -- In "Blind Shaft", a story of an extortion scam in northern China's notorious coal mines, writer-director Li Yang mixes his instincts as a documentarian with keen insights into character.
Not only does this auspicious feature debut expose conditions in China's mines, where thousands reportedly die each year, but the movie is an even greater condemnation of the casual criminality that has supplanted doctrinaire communism in that country. In a relationship between an innocent youth and two venal murderers, Li finds startling dramatic truths, reminiscent of the Italian neo-realist films that emerged from the moral chaos of postwar Italy.
This competition entry is a strong candidate for more festival exposure and possibly art house distribution in Asian territories. Its commercial appeal is limited, but the film certainly augurs well for the future career of its 44-year-old filmmaker.
The scam of the film's two miners goes like this: Before taking jobs in remote, illegal mines, Song (Lim Yixiang) and Tang (Wang Shuangbao) take on a third partner who they claim is a relative. After several days of work, they kill this partner, then cause the mine to collapse to make the death look like an accident. When they threaten to report the death to police, a panicky mine operator pays them off.
Scouting at a train station for another "relative," Tang selects Yuan (Wang Baoqiang), a 16-year-old peasant boy from the countryside. Song insists he is too young. Making a boy their victim crosses a moral line that causes even Song to balk.
Tang talks Song into making Yuan a nephew, however, and soon they all obtain jobs. Yet Song finds ways to delay the murder. He wants to get Yuan laid and drunk so he can at least die a man. The boy's innocence also disrupts the two men's criminal rhythms in a way that is almost comic. Confronted with so much purity and good will, they falter in their scheme.
Li's portrayal of the ramshackle mines and rough towns in that area of China represents a kind of crude capitalism run amok, where life is cheap and people will do anything for money. "China has a shortage of everything but people," muses a crafty mine boss in one of the film's most telling remarks.
"Blind Shaft", a well-acted and well-produced film, is a quiet though searing indictment of contemporary China.
BERLIN -- In "Blind Shaft", a story of an extortion scam in northern China's notorious coal mines, writer-director Li Yang mixes his instincts as a documentarian with keen insights into character.
Not only does this auspicious feature debut expose conditions in China's mines, where thousands reportedly die each year, but the movie is an even greater condemnation of the casual criminality that has supplanted doctrinaire communism in that country. In a relationship between an innocent youth and two venal murderers, Li finds startling dramatic truths, reminiscent of the Italian neo-realist films that emerged from the moral chaos of postwar Italy.
This competition entry is a strong candidate for more festival exposure and possibly art house distribution in Asian territories. Its commercial appeal is limited, but the film certainly augurs well for the future career of its 44-year-old filmmaker.
The scam of the film's two miners goes like this: Before taking jobs in remote, illegal mines, Song (Lim Yixiang) and Tang (Wang Shuangbao) take on a third partner who they claim is a relative. After several days of work, they kill this partner, then cause the mine to collapse to make the death look like an accident. When they threaten to report the death to police, a panicky mine operator pays them off.
Scouting at a train station for another "relative," Tang selects Yuan (Wang Baoqiang), a 16-year-old peasant boy from the countryside. Song insists he is too young. Making a boy their victim crosses a moral line that causes even Song to balk.
Tang talks Song into making Yuan a nephew, however, and soon they all obtain jobs. Yet Song finds ways to delay the murder. He wants to get Yuan laid and drunk so he can at least die a man. The boy's innocence also disrupts the two men's criminal rhythms in a way that is almost comic. Confronted with so much purity and good will, they falter in their scheme.
Li's portrayal of the ramshackle mines and rough towns in that area of China represents a kind of crude capitalism run amok, where life is cheap and people will do anything for money. "China has a shortage of everything but people," muses a crafty mine boss in one of the film's most telling remarks.
"Blind Shaft", a well-acted and well-produced film, is a quiet though searing indictment of contemporary China.
- 2/18/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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