Life of Guangzhou - Sapphire Image Salon 2008 (Nov. 2)

Time: 2008-11-02
Venue: Sapphire Art Space

Sapphire Image Salon Scheduled for Second Half of 2008

11:00 Circus School
Country of Production: China
Commentary Language: Chinese
Subtitle: Chinese
Running Time: 103 min
Year of Production: 2006

Acrobatics is considered as the national quintessence of China. It has existed on this land for over a thousand years. This film relates the hard experiences of a group of children before they become acrobats.

The Flying Trapeze Group and Handstand Group are training hard for the national contest. Under the same immense pressure, however, they end up differently. Children of the trapeze group win the championship heroically after conquering a number of difficulties. The handstand group gives up the contest because of the training fatigue. Meanwhile thirteen-year-old Cai Yong is engaged in a life and death battle against his own weight. After a few shrinks, to everybody's surprise, he gives a perfect first performance.

This is a story about competition and survival.

14:30 Kindergarden
Country of Production: China
Running Time: 69 min
Language: Chinese (English)
Year of Production: 2003
Author: Zhang Yi Qing

"Kindergarten" is a 14 months look at the lives of the children in junior, middle and senior classes in a boarding kindergarten in Wuhan in China's Hubei province. Life inside the kindergarten moves on everyday with the children slowly growing up. Happenings in one's childhood have a long-term affect on our lives, therefore anything, however trivial, seems so important in the kindergarten. All the trivialities of life bears some importance in later life, no matter if it is living in a certain place for a period of time or part of generally growing up. When we bend over to look closely at our children, we are also examining our own world and ourselves.

C.V. of Director:

Zhang Yi Qing was born in Beijing in 1954. He was a worker and teacher and is now the documentary director of Hubei Television Station, a senior journalist and director of the China Television Documentary Academic Association. Amongst all the films that he has produced in the past 18 years, 1 won the national "Five Best Project" award, 3 First Prizes were awarded by the national government, 3 won the China Television Golden Eagle award and 5 were credited internationally. His major works include "Zhouzhou's World", "Panda Ying And It's Trainer Bai" and "Kindergarten". "Zhouzhou's World" entered the mainstream media markets both in America and Europe. "Panda Ying And It's Trainer Bai” was translated into English, French, German and Dutch and was invited by UNESCO to participate in their international culture conference.

Zhang Yi Qing has been invited to lecture in well-known universities including Beijing Film Academy, Beijing Broadcasting Institute, Renmin University of China, Beijing Normal University, Shanghai Theater Academy and Wuhan University. His productions are widely used as teaching films for media students of universities in Mainland China and Taiwan. Zhang Yi Qing was awarded the Press Celebrity prize of Hubei Province, The Provincial Model Worker award and he won The Fifth Fan Changjiang Press award.