The screening on 15 March will be introduced by season curator Millie Zhou.
Platform, the second chapter of Jia Zhangke’s 'Hometown Trilogy' (alongside Xiao Wu and Unknown Pleasures), is shot on 35mm and marks Jia’s first collaboration with Zhao Tao, beginning a partnership that would continue across all of his fiction features. Spanning the late 1970s to the early 1990s, the film unfolds during China’s most far-reaching period of reform and transformation, closely overlapping with Jia’s own coming of age.
Set in a small town in Shanxi province, Platform follows a group of young performers as they evolve from a state-run propaganda troupe into drifting individuals navigating pop culture, romance, and uncertainty. As their ideals fade and desires remain unresolved, the film observes a generation quietly shaped by historical change, unfolding in lived time and ordinary moments.
