13:30-18:00 Let the Summer Never Come Again + Director Q&A

19:30-21:00 Lone Existence

Let the Summer Never Come Again

Director: Alexandre Koberidze

Category: Feature

Country: Georgia

Runtime: 202 minutes

A young man auditions for a dance company in town. He starts getting involved in illegal activities for money. He falls in love with another man. The man he loves has to leave the to join the army, and young man goes back to his village. Shot in low resolution, so that the colors form silent, expressionist swaths, this Koberidze's first film is a wonder for the eyes, combining raw fiction with documentary reality.

Lone Existence

Director: Sha Qing

Category: Documentary

Country: China

Runtime: 77 minutes

For years he has stayed behind closed doors without leaving his home. His desire to communicate and the energy to act have evaporated, while his prospects dwindle by the day. In this silence, memories float up before his eyes: faces and images from the past, the shapes of others, his own, hidden self, which he is reluctant to face. He wants to end his predicament—will it be different, this time around? This is an attempt by the filmmaker to question the link between himself and the world through observation and reflection.

Sha Qing (Director)

After a working as a sound recorder and editor for various documentaries, Sha Qing (b. 1965, Beijing) completed his debut film, Wellspring, in 2002, winning the top prize at the 2003 Yunnan Multi-cultural Visual Festival, the Ogawa Shinsuke prize at the 2003 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, the silver prize at the international category for the 2004 Visions du Réel International Film Festival, and Best International Documentary (short to mid-length) at the 2004 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. He finished Fading Reflections in 2010, and expanded it in 2016 into his new feature film Lone Existence, which went on to be selected for the 2017 Cinéma du Réel International Documentary Film Festival, and to win Awards of Excellence in the international competition of the 2017 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival.

Alexandre Koberidze (Director)

Alexandre Koberidze (b. 1984, Tbilisi, Georgia) studied film production at the Film and Theater University in Tbilisi from 2001 to 2005. Since 2009, he has been studying directing at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB). His works include It Must Have Been Love But It’s Over Now (2012), Germany in War (2013), Looking Back is Grace (2013), Colophon (2015), The Perfect Spectator (2017), Let the Summer Never Come Again (2017) and Linger on Some Pale Blue Dot (2018). Let the Summer Never Come Again was shot with a Sony Eriksson mobile phone and an Alexa professional camera. It won the Grand Prix and Best First Film at Fidmarseille in 2017.

New Asian Scenery

New Asian Scenery is co-founded by Lantern Cine-Club and Blackfin. New Asian Scenery has hosted monthly screenings in Beijing since late 2016, showing films and hosting talks by Vietnamese director Minggui Zhang, Japanese director Kiyoshi Sato, Malaysian director Kek Haut Lau, Japanese director Tetsuya Mariko, Indonesian director Wicaksono Wisnu Legowo, Singaporean director Daniel Hui, Korean director Lee Soojung, Singaporean director Green Zeng, Japanese Director Nakamura Takayuki,Chinese director Zhao Xu and Taiwanese direcitor Su Hung-en. New Asian Scenery aims to be a platform where filmmakers and cinephiles can enjoy screenings together, engage in conversation, and contribute to the Asian film industry’s growth.

Lantern Cine-Club

Founded in 2015, Lantern Cine-Club has screened more than a hundred independent films and invited several directors, along with their film teams, to share insight into their creative processes. After being brought “on scene” for firsthand experience of the production process, audiences develop a deeper understanding of the context around each film.

Blackfin

Blackfin Production is a production company focusing on investment, production, and distribution of art films and independent documentaries. Based in Beijing, it has branch offices in Hangzhou, Hong Kong, and Paris, which are responsible for production, project development, international sales and acquisition, respectively. For the past three years since its founding, Blackfin has discovered several young promising directors, whose films have gone on to be selected for numerous international film festivals, including Bi Gan, (Best Emerging Director and Special Mention for First Feature at the Festival del film Locarno 2015 and Best New Director at the Golden Horse Awards 2015 for his 2015 film Kaili Blues), Qiu Jiongjiong (official selection at the Sign of Life of Festival del Film Locarno for his 2015 film, Mr. Zhang Believes), Zhai Yixiang (Best Feature Film at K26 of Filmfest Hamburg 2015, Best Art Contribution at FIRST for his 2015 film, This Worldly Life), Wang Xuebo (New Currents Award at the 21st Busan International Film Festival for his 2016 film, Knife in the Clear Water), Geng Jun (Special Jury Award in Cinematic Vision at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival for his 2016 film, Free and Easy), and Zhai Yixiang (Grand Prize million TWD award at Taipei Golden Horse Film Project Promotion for his new film, Mosaic Portrait). With an international outlook, Blackfin Production aims to bring vitality the film industry both in and beyond China.