Up The Mountain

Up The Mountain
Mainland China | 2018 | 126’ | DCP | Colour | Chinese | Group: B

Director: Zhang Yang

An introduction of the film will be given by film delegation before the film screening

Shen Jianhua, an artist originally from Shanghai, has been living in a small, remote village in Yunnan Province with his family for many years. By teaching art to the local community in his quiet hilltop house, Shen has made an impact on their lives. His latest protégées are a group of elderly women who have a great eye for color and compositions and have formed a Farmer Painting Society. Shen’s apprentice Dinglong falls in love with a visitor called Xu Lin and they plan to marry but they have different ideas about their wedding and the life they want to lead. Eventually Dinglong decided to move to the city, but not without sadness at leaving the village.

Zhang Yang was born in Beijing, China, in 1967 and graduated from the Director’s Department of the Central Theatre Academy. He made his first film Spicy Love Soup in 1997 and since then has directed Shower (1999), Quitting (2001), Sunflower (2005), Getting Home (2007), Driverless (2010), Full Circle (2012) and Soul On A String (2016). His films have played at many international film festivals (Venice, Toronto, Sundance, Berlin, San Sebastian included) and won many awards. He also recently made his first feature documentary Paths Of The Soul which had its world premiere at Toronto in 2015.