The Dimension section will present a group of the most exploratory works in Beijing Film Panorama.
Through Dimension, we focus on the breakthroughs in cinema as film art, examine how images present, how they change, and what they bring to us, and think about the future and possibilities of cinema.
Dimension is to discover, to watch, to record, to examine, and to gain insights.
Dimension also denotes level, boundary, vision, dimension, and the universe.Through this section, we hope to explore the likelihood of nourishing a vision, with which we continue to open up the world of cinema.
The Dimension section recommends the following amazing films:
Super Natural
A still of Super Natural
It is a transcendent film with rich imagination and creativity, and was awarded as the Best Feature Film at the FIPRESCI Prize Forum and the New Film Forum of the Berlin International Film Festival.
The film begins with the sound from the pitch black, leading audiences to embark on a journey of life. Going beyond fiction and reality and integrating region, history, humor and dissection through 4K HD photography, Super 8 photography, digital technologies and other materials, the film is both microscopic and macroscopic, both mythological and mechanical, and both close but so far away.
We have got used to staring at the screen, but in Super Natural, the screen stares at, attracts and teases the off-screen audience from beginning to end.
Seneca (4K)
A still of Seneca
Robert Schwentke, who once directed the film The Captain and the hot TV series Lie to Me, is always able to unearth the absurdity in heavy subjects. Debuted at this year's Berlin International Film Festival, it is a historical film with unique style, and its subtitle of “On the Creation of Earthquakes” reflects the director's ambition about creation.
Seneca starred by John Malkovich was abandoned and killed by Emperor Nero in history. The story tells a bizarre story of Seneca who manipulates power at any risk.
The film was shot in Ouarzazate, southern Morocco. This place used to be a shooting site of The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice by Orson Welles, Oedipus Rex by Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Kingdom of Heaven by Ridley Scott. The city where heroes rise and philosophers fall plays a key role in the film, becoming Seneca's farewell stage.
The Beast in the Jungle
A still of The Beast in the Jungle
In a nightclub, a man and a woman have encountered and waited for countless times, and spent 25 years with the evolution from disco to techno music. The film is adapted from a novel by Henry James, which visualizes ambiguity and lust described in words to a single scenario -- a club partying every night and never closing from 1979 to 2004.
This is a story of obsession, and an experiment of existentialism. The director greedily shoots the dance of life on the dance floor, through which the bubble between reality and fantasy is broken. In an emotional game between the hero and heroine, time passes by, leaving a question: What exactly is the beast in the jungle? Where does it come from? Where is it going?
The Cage is Looking for a Bird
A still of The Cage is Looking for a Bird
Following Alexander Zolotukhin, director of Brother in Every Inch, Malika Musaeva is another new director who graduated from Kabardino-Balkarian State University majoring in directing and joined famous Russian director Alexander Sokurov’s studio. As the first feature film by Musaeva, it was shortlisted for the Encounters section of the Berlin International Film Festival.
The film displays the freedom struggle and fate choices of several women, vividly depicts characters and regulates emotions. The combination of characters and landscape is a highlight. The entire film uses rounded rectangular frames, which seem to record a history of women's secret lives with old pictures.
Smoking Causes Coughing (4K)
A still of Smoking Causes Coughing
It is another absurd comedy with rich imagination by French genius director Quentin Dupieux following Deerskin and Mandibules. The film can be seen as his harsh criticism over the current popular movie culture, and a great representative of Dupieux-style irony.
A few French stars gather in the film full of “hell jokes”, and create a series of hilarious, creepy and weird scenes.
It is an anti-genre film, and an unforgettable, stunning story about “superheroes”.
Creature (4K)
A still of Creature
Akram Khan, one of the most influential contemporary choreographers, has received training of the South Asian classical dance system since childhood, and absorbed the essence of Western modern dance and ballet through his extensive cooperation with famous dance troupes, such as English National Ballet, BalletBoyz, Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, etc. Based on a mix of styles, he has formed his unique style. In this film, he has partnered with director Asif Kapadia to throw their sight upon Frankenstein, a sci-fi novel by Mary Shelley.
Asif Kapadia, who has directed high-score documentaries such as Maradona, Amy and Senna, captures a hauntingly beautiful real-time dance performance on stage through his camera which is good at discovering the spark of genius. Famous art designer and contemporary artist Tim Yip is responsible for the visual and costume design of this film. With a strong lineup, Creature has broken boundaries in both performance and the audiovisual effect, making it a treasure not to be missed.
The Taste of MacGuffin
A still of The Taste of MacGuffin
The film tells the story of a frustrated director, who meets his ideal film heroine by chance. In his pursuit of the heroine, the director’s affection for her has unconsciously affected the film he's trying to make. A man and a woman, with their different views on film, art and love, set out a city roaming, and gradually walk into a world that blurs dreams and fiction and blends imagination and reality.
This is the fourth original film by Li Yunbo, as well as the fourth time for him to attend the Beijing Film Panorama with a new film. His works as director and screenwriter, including Something in Blue, Wild Swords, and Ms. Pearl, have been shortlisted for several international film festivals and won awards.
His new film The Taste of MacGuffin uses 18 moments in autumn to tell the story of a director's search for his muse, completing a creative formal experiment.
The Ordinaries
A still of The Ordinaries
Many people dream of living in a movie, but this film constitutes a cruel anti-Utopian world based on this vision. In this world, everyone lives a step-by-step life with a “predetermined character” in a “predetermined plot”. When the “supporting actress” wishes to be upgraded to the “actress”, the Rubik’s cube of fate begins to turn, triggering a series of fantastic stories. The film, also known as Subtext, which is even more terrifying than The Truman Show, is a social science fantasy that exactly speaks for everyone on and off the screen.
Sophie Linnenbaum, director of the film, studied at Babelsberg Film University, and has become a remarkable rising star with a series of short films and documentaries. With this fantastic fable of humanity, she was nominated for Crystal Globe at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
The imaginative story setting, paired with experimental and stage-like art design, bold editing and unconventional music, makes the key tone of the whole film constantly move back and forth between the sense of substitution and alienation, giving the audience an unprecedentedly fantastic watching experience.
Walk Up
A still of Walk Up
Black and white, man and woman, encounter, drinking and chatting, the elements that are repeatedly seen in the films of director Hong Sang-soo, have recombined to generate a different story and perception.
The whole story of the film takes place inside and outside of a four-story building. The characters go up and down the stairs and walk between different floors, entering different spaces and worlds through the same door.
The confined and simple space enables the director to feel extremely free to carry out the experiment and exploration of time, making this film different from his previous works, which is worth appreciating slowly.
In Water
A still of In Water
The latest film by Hong Sang-soo was shortlisted for the Encounters section of the Berlin International Film Festival. Its visual effect is very prominent -- boldly losing focus to blur viewers’ vision, making the screen that always aims to approach and attract the audience present a refusal situation. It is a brave challenge to face the audience.
The film tells the story of a young actor who decides to shoot a short film, and visits the Jeju Island with a few cast members to look for inspiration. This group of young filmmakers are wandering idly by the sea, waiting for a story as if they are waiting for the tidal rise and fall.
What exactly do filmmakers wish to make? What exactly do audiences want to watch? The answer, perhaps, is in water.
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