Asian Film Series

Fall 2013
September 10 (Tuesday) 7 PM @ Faylor Lecture Hall The Flowers of War

Awards include the 2012 Shanghai Film Critics Award, 2012 Golden Reel Award, 2012 Asian Film Award, and nomination for the 2012 Golden Globe Award (Directed by Zhang Yimou, 2012, 142 min). Based on the novel by Yan Geling. The dangerous streets of Nanjing throw together a group of opposites, a flock of shell-shocked schoolchildren, a dozen seductive courtesans, and a renegade American posing as a priest to save his own skin, or so he thinks, all seeking safety behind a walled cathedral. Trapped by marauding soldiers, over the next few days the prejudices and divides between them will fall away as they unite around a last ditch plan to protect the children from impending catastrophe.

September 24 (Tuesday) 7 PM @ Fisher G18 Sita Sings the Blues

Awards include Best Screenplay Award at the 2008 Athens International Film Festival, Crystal Bear-Special Mention Award at the 2008 Berlin International Film Festival, Emerging Film Maker Award at the 2008 Denver International Festival, and the 2009 San Francisco Film Critics Circle Special Citation Award (Directed by Nina Paley, 2008, 82 min). Directed by the American cartoonist Nina Paley, this modern transformation of the ancient Indian epic Ramayana into a fascinating mixture of animation techniques sheds new light on meaning and relevance of Hindu gods and morals. The parallel between the legendary story of Rama and Sita and the life of a twentieth-century American couple bridges distant cultural identities and offers a striking timeless religious narrative.

October 8 (Tuesday) 7 PM @ Faylor Lecture Hall Spring in My Hometown ( )

Awards include the Gold Award at the 1998 Tokyo International Film Festival, Special Artistic Achievement Award at the 1998 Thessaloniki Film Festival, Golden Maile Award at the 1998 Hawaii International Film Festival, and Don Quixote Award at the 1999 Fribourg International Film Festival (Directed by Kwangmo Lee, 1998, 120 min). A story that dramatizes the turbulent period of the Korean War through the eyes of a little boy who lives in a rural village. Set in the early 1950s when the United States military presence was predominant in Korea, Spring in My Hometown depicts the life of an older generation from a child's perspective. The film combines historical facts and the recreated life of hard but beautiful times with the formalism of long takes and long shots.