The East Asian Studies Center is proud to screen Zhao Liang's 2015 lyrical documentary, Behemoth. The film will be accompanied by a special introduction on Chinese documentary film by Professor Kirk Denton, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, The Ohio State University.
17 November 2016
6:00 pm
Gateway Film Center
1550 N High St.
Free and open to the public. Seating is limited. Tickets are first-come, first-served and will be available at the Gateway Film Center on the day of the screening.
Trailer
SYNOPSIS
Beginning with a mining explosion in Mongolia and ending in a ghost city west of Beijing, political documentarian Zhao Liang's visionary new film Behemoth details, in one breathtaking sequence after another, the social and environmental devastation behind an economic miracle that may yet prove illusory.
Drawing inspiration from The Divine Comedy, Zhao offers intoxicating and terrifying images of the ravages wrought by his country's coal and iron industries on both the land and its people. Beautiful grasslands covered in soot and dust. Mountains shredded in half. Herdsmen and their families forced to leave their lands, to escape poisonous air. Miners descending deeper into pitch black mine shafts. Scorching ironworks that resemble hellish infernos. And in hospitals, ill-equipped to handle the deluge, workers suffering critical illnesses.
Building upon his previous acclaimed exposés (2009’s Petition, 2007’s Crime and Punishment), Zhao combines muckraking journalistic techniques with stunning visuals to capture an unfolding nightmare. It's a film replete with haunting imagery. But none more so than Zhao's tour through a barren metropolis, a gleaming, newly constructed city, intended as a workers' paradise, that now stands empty, desolate of life; waiting, perhaps, for that economic miracle.
DIRECTOR'S BIOGRAPHY
With his unique vision and acute reflections on social issues and conditions, Zhao has been extending the frontiers of documentary filmmaking in China today. His award-winning
Crime and Punishment (Best Film–Festival des 3 Continents–Nantes, France; also screened in Locarno) was an eye-opening exploration of military law enforcement in China. His
Petition (aka The Court of the Complaints) followed a group of disgruntled citizens from 1996 to 2008, and was screened at the Cannes Film Festival (Special Screenings). The film has won several awards at festivals, including Hong Kong, DocLisboa, Hawaii, DocNZ Auckland and Tiburon. His documentary Together revealed the situation of HIV and AIDS in China, and was screened at the Berlinale Panorama.
Born in Northeastern China (Dandong, Liaoning Province), Zhao Liang graduated from Luxun Academy of Fine Arts in 1992. Based in Beijing since 1993, Zhao has been working as an independent documentary filmmaker as well as a multimedia artist in photography and video art. His works have been exhibited in the International Center of Photography (New York), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), Museo Reina So a (Madrid) and numerous other art galleries and museums around the world.
Free and Open to the Public
This event is sponsored in part by a Title VI Grant to The Ohio State University East Asian Studies Center.
