Amir Naderi
Amir Naderi in 65th Venice film festival
Born	Amir Naderi (1946-08-15) August 15, 1946 (age 65) Abadan, Iran
Occupation	Director, Screenwriter, Photographer
Years active	1968-present
Website
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0618881/

Amir Naderi (Persian: امیر نادری‎, born 15 August 1946 in Abadan) is a notable Iranian film director, screenwriter and one of the most influential figures of 20th-century Iranian cinema. Mr Naderi latest feature film CUT starring Hidetoshi Nishijima and Takako Tokiwa was released in Japan in 2011 and in Korea in 2012.

Naderi developed his knowledge of cinema by watching films at the theater where he worked as a boy, reading film criticism, and making relationships with leading film critics. He began his career with still photography for some notable Iranian features. In the 1970s, Naderi turned to directing, and made some of the most important features of the New Iranian Cinema. In 1971, his directorial debut, Goodbye Friend was released in Iran. Mr. Naderi first came into the international spotlight with films that are now known as cinema classics, The Runner (1985), and Water, Wind, Dust (1989). The Runner is considered by many critics to be one of the most influential films of the past quarter century. After a number of his films were banned by the Iranian government, Mr. Naderi left the country. Expatriating to New York, Mr. Naderi continued to produce new work. He was named a Rockefeller Film and Video fellow in 1997, and has served as an artist in residence and instructor at Columbia University, the University of Las Vegas, and New York's School of Visual Arts. His U.S. films have premiered at the Film Society of Lincoln Center/MOMA's New Films New Director's series, the Venice, Cannes, Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals. His U.S. feature, Sound Barrier (2005) won the prestigious Roberto Rossellini Prize at the Rome Film Festival. Naderi's latest feature film CUT was made in Japan in Japanese language and stars Hidetoshi Nishijima and Takako Tokiwa. The film laments the collapse of cinema through the gripping tale of a young filmmaker giving it all to make his next movie.

Due to smaller distribution and advertising budgets, Mr. Naderi's films are not as well known as most Hollywood films. Despite that and the lack of recognizable actors in most of his films, his work tends to find distribution (mainly in Europe and Japan), and he has earned a great deal of critical acclaim. Mr. Naderi’s films and photography are also frequently the subject of retrospectives at major festivals and museums throughout the world. Lincoln Center in New York, the city that has been his home for the past 20 years, offered a complete retrospective of his work in 2001, as did the International Museum of Cinema in Turin, Italy in 2006. The most recent retrospective of his work was screened at the Pusan International Film Festival, the largest in Asia. Mr. Naderi has served as a jury member of international film festivals for over a decade.

Amir Naderi continues to produce works of new generation of film directors such as Andrei Severny's Condition (2011), Naghmeh Shirkhan's Hamsayeh (2010) and Ry Russo-Young's Orphans (2007).

Filmography[link]

• 2011 - CUT
• 2008 - Vegas: Based on a True Story: Official Competition - Venice Film Festival, World Narrative Competition - Tribeca Film Festival
• 2005 - Sound Barrier, premiere: Spotlight, Tribeca Film Festival
• 2002 - Marathon, premiere: FilmEx Film Festival, Tokyo, Japan
• 1997 - A, B, C... Manhattan, premiere: 1997 Cannes Film Festival, Un Certain Regard^[1]
• 1993 - Manhattan By Numbers, premiere: MOMA/Film Society of Lincoln Center New Directors/New Films series
• 1989 - Ab, Bad, Khak (Water, Wind, Dust)
• 1985 - Davandeh (The Runner)
• 1981 - Josteju Doe (Search Two)
• 1980 - Josteju Yek (Search One)
• 1979 - Barandeh (The Winner)
• 1975 - Marsiyeh (Requiem)
• 1974 - Entezar (Waiting)
• 1973 - Saz Dahani (Harmonica)
• 1973 - Tangsir* 1971 - Tangna (Impasse)
• 1970 - Khoda Hafez Rafiq (Goodbye Friend)

Awards, honors and competition entries[link]

• Venice Film Festival - Vegas : based on a true story, Official competition (2008)
• Rome Film Festival – Roberto Rossellini Critics Prize, Sound Barrier (2005)
• Turin Film Festival – Bastone Bianco, Sound Barrier (2005)
• Avignon Film Festival – Prix Tournage, A, B, C, Manhattan (1997)
• Cannes film festival - A, B, C, Manhattan Un certain regard (competition) (1997)
• Nantes Film Festival – Golden Montgolfiere (Grand Prix), Water Wind Dust (1989)
• Nantes Film Festival – Golden Montgolfiere (Grand Prix), The Runner (1985)
• San Remo Film Festival – Best Film, Jury Prize, Requiem (1975)
• Cannes Film Festival – Jury Award, Waiting (1975)
• Virgin Islands Film Festival - Golden Plaque, Waiting (1975)

See also[link]

• Persian cinema

References[link]

External links[link]

• Amir Naderi at the Internet Movie Database
• http://www.facebook.com/cutnaderi

v t e Cinema of Iran Films A–Z • Chronology of films • Films by year: Pre-1960 • 1960s • 1970s • 1980s • 1990s • 2000s • 2010s Actors • Directors • Cinematographers • Iranian New Wave • Producers • Score composers • Screenwriters

Jia Zhangke
Chinese name	賈樟柯 (Traditional)
Chinese name	贾樟柯 (Simplified)
Pinyin	Jiǎ Zhāngkē (Mandarin)
Born	1970 Fenyang, Shanxi, China
Occupation	Film director, film producer
Years active	1995–present
Awards Golden Montgolfiere 1998 Xiao Wu 2000 Platform TFCA Award for Best Foreign Language Film 2004 The World Asian Film Award for Best Director 2006 Still Life Golden Lion 2006 Still Life LAFCA Award for Best Foreign Language Film 2008 Still Life

Jia Zhangke (simplified Chinese: 贾樟柯; traditional Chinese: 賈樟柯; pinyin: Jiǎ Zhāngkē; born 1970 in Fenyang, Shanxi, China) is a Chinese film director. He is generally regarded as a leading figure of the "Sixth Generation" movement of Chinese cinema, a group that also includes such figures as Wang Xiaoshuai and Zhang Yuan.^[1]

Jia's early films, a loose trilogy based in his home province of Shanxi, were made outside of China's state-run film bureaucracy, and therefore are considered "underground" films. Beginning in 2004, Jia's status in his own country was raised when he was allowed to direct his fourth feature film, The World, with state approval.

Jia's films have received critical praise and have been recognized internationally, notably winning the Venice Film Festival's top award for Still Life. He has been described by critics and film directors as being perhaps "the most important filmmaker working in the world today."^[2]

Education[link]

Jia's interest in film began in the early 1990s, as an art student at the Shanxi University in Taiyuan. On a lark, Jia attended a screening of Chen Kaige's masterpiece, Yellow Earth. The film, according to Jia, was life changing, and convinced the young man that he wanted to be a director.^[3] Jia would eventually make it to China's prestigious Beijing Film Academy in 1993, as a film theory major, giving him access to both western and eastern classics, as well as an extensive film library.^[3]

Directorial career[link]

Early work[link]

While a student at the Beijing Film Academy, Jia would make three short films to hone his skills. The first, a ten minute short documentary on tourists in Tiananmen Square entitled One Day in Beijing, was made in 1994 on self-raised funds.^[4] Though Jia has referred to his first directorial effort as inconsequential and "naive", he also described the short day and half shoot as "excitement...difficult to express in words."^[5] But it was Jia's second directorial effort, the short film Xiao Shan Going Home (1995), that would bring him to the attention of the film world. It was a film that helped establish Jia's style and thematic interests and, in Jia's words, was a film that "truly marks the beginning of my career as a filmmaker."^[6] Xiao Shan would eventually to screen abroad where it won a top prize at the 1997 Hong Kong Independent Short Film & Video Awards.^[1] More significantly, the film's success brought Jia in contact with cinematographer Yu Lik-wai and producer Li Kit Ming,^[1] two men who along with producer/editor Chow Keung would come to form Jia Zhangke's "core...creative team."^[7] With their support, Jia was able to begin work on Xiao Wu, which would become his first feature film. Before graduating, however, Jia would make one more short film, Du Du (1996), a film about a female college student faced with several life-changing decisions. The film, little seen and rarely available, was for Jia an exercise of experimentation and technique, as it was filmed without a script.^[8] For Jia, the film was an important learning experience, even if he was "not terribly proud" of the end result.^[8]

Underground success[link]

Upon graduation, Jia embarked on his first feature length film, with producer Li Kit Ming and cinematographer Yu Lik-wai. Xiao Wu, a film about a pickpocket in Jia's native Fenyang, emerged out of Jia's desire to capture the massive changes that had happened to his home in the past few years.^[9] Additionally, the film was a rejection of what Jia felt was the fifth generation's increasing tendency to move away from the reality of modern China and into the realm of historical legend.^[10] Shot on a mere 400,000 RMB budget (or about US$50,000),^[1] Xiao Wu would prove to be a major success on the international film circuit, bringing Jia a deal with Takeshi Kitano's production house.^[1]

Jia capitalized on his success with Xiao Wu with a two internationally acclaimed independent features. The first, Platform, was partially funded in 1998 through the Pusan Promotion Plan (PPP) of the Busan (Pusan) International Film Festival when Jia received the Hubert Bals Fund Award (HBF) for his project. (Ahn, Soo Jeong, The Pusan Film Festival, South Korean Cinema and Globalization,2012, 104-105). Platform was a three hour epic about a provincial dance and music troupe transitioning from the 1970s to the early 1990s. The film has been called the masterpiece of the entire sixth generation movement.^[11] Starring Wang Hongwei, Jia's classmate and star of Xiao Shan Going Home and Xiao Wu, Platform was also the first of Jia's films to star actress Zhao Tao, a former dance teacher. Zhao would go on to serve as Jia Zhangke's muse as the lead female role in Unknown Pleasures, The World, and Still Life, as well as acting in 24 City and the short film Cry Me a River (both in 2008).

With 2002's Unknown Pleasures, Jia began a foray into filming in digital video (although his first experimentation with the medium came a year before, in 2001's short documentary In Public). Xiao Wu, Platform and Unknown Pleasures are sometimes seen collectively as an informal trilogy of China's transition into modernity.^[12] Unknown Pleasures, a meditation on the aimless "birth control" generation to emerge out of the one-child policy helped cement Jia's reputation as a major voice in contemporary Chinese cinema.^[13] All this despite limited theatrical runs and obscurity in mainland China. Indeed, none of the three films were ever publicly released in the PRC, although pirated DVD sales were brisk, a fact commented on by Jia near the end of Unknown Pleasures when Xiao Wu, the character (Wang Hongwei again), attempts to buy the DVD of Xiao Wu, the film.^[14]

Wider success[link]

Jia Zhangke at 2008 Venice Film Festival

Beginning with 2004's The World, Jia began to work with official approval from the Chinese government.^[15] The shift from independent to state-approved was not in isolation, however, but was part of a broader movement by many "underground" film directors turning legitimate.^[16] For many critics, the shift to legitimacy did not blunt Jia's critical eye, and The World was well received both abroad and – somewhat surprisingly – by the Chinese government.^[16] Taking place in Beijing's World Park, the film was also Jia's first to take place outside of his home province of Shanxi.

In 2006, Jia returned to his experimentation with digital film with his film Still Life. The film would see Jia's status both at home and abroad raised when it won the coveted Golden Lion in the 2006 Venice Film Festival.^[17] The film, a diptych film about two people searching for their spouses in the backdrop of the Three Gorges Dam, was accompanied by the companion documentary Dong, about artist Liu Xiaodong.

The 2000s have seen Jia at a prolific period of his career. Following the success of Still Life, Jia was reported to be working on a gangster film, The Age of Tattoo ("Ciqing shidai"). Originally planned to be released in 2007, production on The Age of Tattoo was delayed after lead Jay Chou pulled out of the project,^[18] with Jia moving on to other films. These included a second documentary, Useless, about China's clothing manufacturing business, which garnered the director the Orizzonti Doc Prize at Venice in 2008,^[19][20] and 24 City, an ambitious work that chronicles the lives of several generation of women. At the London Film Festival, 24 City was accompanied by another Jia short film, Cry Me a River, a romance starring Summer Palace actors, Hao Lei and Guo Xiaodong, and Jia regulars Zhao Tao and Wang Hongwei.^[21]

As of 2009, Jia is working on another documentary, this time about the history of Shanghai.^[22] Jia is also beginning work on his first big budget production, a historical film titled In the Qing Dynasty, which will be produced by the Hong Kong filmmaker Johnny To.^[22]

His most recent film, I Wish I Knew, is a documentary exploring the changing face of Shanghai. I Wish I Knew debuted in the Un certain regard competition in the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.^[23]

Themes[link]

Jia's films treat themes of alienated youth, contemporary Chinese history and globalization, as well as his signature usage of the long-take, colorful digital video and his minimalist/realist style. The World, in particular, with its portrayal of gaudy theme park filled with recreations of foreign landmarks is often noted for its critique of the globalization of China.^[24][25]

Jia's work speaks to a vision of "authentic" Chinese life, and his consistent return to the themes of alienation and disorientation fly in the face of the work of older filmmakers who present more idealized understandings of Chinese society. Critic Howard Feinstein described the director as a "rare breed of filmmaker capable of combining stunning artifice with documentary truth."^[26]

Critics have noted that whereas "Fifth Generation" filmmakers such as Zhang Yimou churn out export-friendly and lushly-colored wuxia dramas, Jia, as a "Sixth Generation" filmmaker, rejects the idealization of these narratives in favor of a more nuanced style. His films, from Xiao Wu and Unknown Pleasures to Platform and The World, eschew the son et lumière that characterizes so many contemporary Chinese exports. But the films' recurrent and reflexive use of "pop" motifs ensure that they are more self-aware than the similarly documentarian Chinese films of Jia's Sixth Generation peers.^[27]

Filmography[link]

As director[link]

As actor[link]

As producer[link]

(Excluding production credits for Jia's own directorial efforts.)

See also[link]

• Xstream Pictures – Jia Zhangke's production company, founded with Yu Lik-wai and Chow Keung.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jia Zhangke

• Jia Zhangke at the Internet Movie Database
• Jia Zhangke at AllRovi
• Jia Zhangke at the Senses of Cinema directory of great directors
• Overloaded Peking – documentary starring Jia Zhangke
• BigScreen Festival with Jia Zhangke
• Postsocialist Grit An essay on ideology and aesthetics in Platform and Unknown Pleasures at Offscreen Journal
• A conversation with Jia Zhangke
• Jia Zhangke on The Realist Imperatvie at Asia Society
• Q&A with Jia Zhangke at VIFF 2010 at the Intermedias Review
• The Quest for Memory: Documentary and Fiction in Jia Zhangke's Films, Jiwei Xiao, Senses of Cinema 59

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