New York Film Festival Masterworks

BRIDGE (Wang Bin, 1949) 

This year's Masterworks series at the New York Film Festival draw on repertory collections of films that highlight (mainly) unknown aspects of global cinema. The first program is (RE)INVENTING CHINA: A New Cinema for a New Society, focusing on Chinese films made during the height of the Maoist revolution from 1949 to 1966. The series brings together twenty rarely seen works from the crucial early years of the People's Republic of China.

Following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, a series of debates emerged as to the role of the cinema in the new socialist state. What kind of balance should filmmakers strike between the education of the masses and their entertainment? What should be the place of Chinese cultural traditions in creating a national cinema?

This film series presents 20 films from the so-called “Seventeen Year” period—from the founding of the PRC to the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution—that sought to respond to these debates about what kind of cinema this “New China” should have. Included are a number of works never before seen in the U.S. as well as well-known masterworks such as This Life of Mine and Two Stage Sisters.

For more information on this unique program, visit: http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/masterworks.html 

Sandy Mandelberger, Festival Dailies Editor