LOS ANGELES, CA – China’s masters and emerging filmmakers find their place at the China Onscreen Biennial (COB). The third edition of the COB brings a showcase of Chinese films and cultural experiences to American audiences in three major cities – Los Angeles, New York and Washington DC.
Audiences will be entertained by a spectacular tapestry of China’s unique cultures, voices, religions and social experiences.
This year’s COB is a cultural and physical immersion into China’s remarkable plurality, not only with the best selection of eclectic films, but also the live creation of sound mandalas using the voices of the audience and group meditation led by a practicing Rinpoche.
A special sidebar film program, Dunhuang Projected, is inspired by the Buddhist cave art found in the desert oasis of Dunhuang in northwest China, which was a nexus for global trade and cultural exchange along the Silk Road for 1,000 years, until the 15th century. These films explore what the global community can learn from medieval Dunhuang – the migration of cultures and ideas through trade. The program correlates spiritual illumination, the cave art of Dunhuang, with contemporary illumination, the art of cinema.
The Spectrum section of new feature and short films captures the diverse stories, sounds, images and texture of the country – from the big coastal cities such as Beijing to the borderlands, social margins, Tibetan highlands, refugee camps, and uninhabited “ghost towns,” and to memories of Inner Mongolia and plying the strait of water between colonial Hong Kong and Guangdong.
Some of the 2016 slate of films is made within China’s vastly expanding and increasingly international entertainment industry, yet they defy commercial formula with poetry and grace. Others are works of art that bring urgency to pressing societal concerns.
The program is curated by a team of film scholars and curators from the COB partner organizations.
