Film: "Jia Zhangke: A Guy from Fenyang"

Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles (Central Station, The Motorcycle Diaries) accompanies the prolific Chinese director Jia Zhangke on a walk down memory lane as Jia revisits his hometown and other locations from his ever-growing body of work.

Brazilian filmmaker Walter Salles (Central Station, The Motorcycle Diaries) accompanies the prolific Chinese director Jia Zhangke on a walk down memory lane as Jia revisits his hometown and other locations from his ever-growing body of work. At each location, the two directors visit Jia's family, friends, and former colleagues. Their conversations range from his mother's tales of Jia as a young boy to amusing remembrances of schooldays and film shoots to memories of his father. They also discuss the fact that, if not for pirated DVDs, much of Jia's work would go unseen in China. The confluence of storytelling, intellect, and politics informing all of Jia's work is brought to light in this lovely, intimate portrait. (Dir.: Walter Salles, France/Brazil, 2014, 99 min., Blu-ray, Mandarin with English subtitles)