The screening on 18 April will be introduced by Kiki Yu (Queen Mary).
Ten years after his last documentary I Wish I Knew (2010), Jia Zhangke returns to non-fiction with Swimming Out till the Sea Turns Blue, the final chapter in his trilogy about arts in China, following Venice award-winning Dong (2006, about the painter Liu Xiaodong) and Useless (2007, about the fashion designer Ma Ke).
Jia’s latest documentary, Swimming Out till the Sea Turns Blue, centres on four prominent modern Chinese writers, the late Ma Feng, Jia Pingwa (Red Sorghum Clan), Yu Hua (To Live) and Liang Hong at a literary festival, taking place in May 2019 in Jia’s hometown of Fenyang in Shanxi province. This starts an 18-chapter symphony about Chinese society since 1949. Through reflections on their own lives and literary careers, those authors discuss the changes China has undergone since their births in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, weaving a 70-year spiritual history of the Chinese people.
