Following a path similar to directors Wayne Wang (The Joy Luck Club; Soul of the Banquet) and Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; Brokeback Mountain; Life of Pi), a generation of filmmakers who grew up in China are being educated and developing their craft in the West. Outside of their formal training, these Chinese filmmakers are inspired by their discoveries and experiences in their home away from home. Compared to their peers in China, they explore a wider range of stories, themes, genres, and narrative styles. Their talent and insight are being recognized. At this year’s Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Student Academy Awards, three Chinese filmmakers, Teng Cheng, Yulin Liu, and Zijian Mu won in the Animation, Narrative, and Documentary categories, respectively.
To promote and encourage the current and future Chinese filmmakers in the West, EnMaze Pictures is launching North America Chinese Directors Short Film Tour, a five-US city road show featuring 21 short films. The films were selected from over 90 films by student filmmakers at 30 film schools in the United States by a professional jury of prestigious film scholars and experts including Richard Peña (former Program Director at Film Society of Lincoln Center), Hardy Justice (Senior VP of Maven Pictures) and Peggy Chiao (film producer and writer). The tour will host screenings in New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles where each city will see a different subset of the 21 films. Afterwards, EnMaze brings the films to China, where they are technically foreign films, for a homecoming of sorts of these filmmakers.
North America Chinese Shorts Trailer from EnMaze Pictures LLC惊迷影视
The tour begins in New York City at Quad Cinema 34 W. 13th Street at 7 PM on Thursday, October 9, 2014 with six films spanning drama, fantasy, action, and crime story genres. Tickets can be purchased here. Visit the tour’s Facebook page for updates and its Kickstarter campaign page to support its cause.