The screening on 29 March will be followed by an online Q&A with the lead actor Wang Hongwei (Xiao Wu, Platform, Unknown Pleasures).
A rare chance to be seen with English subtitles, Xiao Shan Going Home is the film that launched Jia Zhangke’s career. Shot on video and running just under an hour, it qualified for entry in the Hong Kong Independent Film and Video Awards, where it won top prize in 1997. It was there that Jia met his long-time producer Chow Keung and cinematographer Nelson Yu Lik-wai, while the cash award went on to fund his first feature, Xiao Wu.
The film establishes the raw, on-the-street aesthetics that would come to define Jia’s early work. It stars Wang Hongwei, who was also the protagonist in Xiao Wu. In Xiao Wu, Wang’s character is stuck in small town China, but in Xiao Shan Going Home, plays a migrant worker stuck in Beijing as he fruitlessly tries everything he can think of to get back to his small hometown in time for the Chinese New Year. The film was pioneering not only in its style, but also in its focus on the daily difficulties of China’s huge internal migrant population. Seen today, Xiao Shan Going Home already tackles many of the thematic and formal concerns that would define Jia Zhangke’s works for decades to come.
