Movie Night at the OACC

A monthly film screening featuring selections and introductions by invited speakers. Organized by Jackie Im and hosted by the Oakland Asian Cultural Center.

December 20: Summer Palace

Join us for Movie Night at the OACC!

This month we will be screening Summer Lives (颐和园) by Chinese filmmaker Lou Ye. The film depicts the life of a young student, Yu Hong (Lei Hao) who leaves her small hometown to attend a university. There she meets a fellow student (Xiaodong Guo) and begins a tumultuous romantic relationship under the backdrop of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. The film follows their lives and relationship through the 1990s and into the 2000s. In his New York Times review of the film, A.O. Scott wrote:

Neither the later disaffection nor the earlier ardor feels in the least bit melodramatic or overstated. And in spite of its 2-hour-20-minute length, “Summer Palace” moves with the swiftness and syncopation of a pop song. Like Jean-Luc Godard in the 1960s, Mr. Lou favors breathless tracking shots and snappy jump cuts, and like Mr. Godard’s, his camera is magnetized by female beauty. But Ms. Lei, a tough and uninhibited actress, is not simply the object of the film’s gaze; Yu Hong’s resilience and vulnerability are the film’s emotional core, and its feverish rhythms follow the chaotic pattern of her desires.

 The film will be introduced by Xiaoyu Weng, an independent curator and writer based in San Francisco. She has organized exhibitions and events for venues in the Bay Area, including the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Asian Art Museum, the Kadist Foundation and Queens Nails Projects. She has been awarded a residency by the Gwangju Biennale Foundation in South Korea. She is the winner of the Artforum Critical Writing Award in 2011. Her writings have appeared in Artforum, Contemporary Art and Investment, Art World Journal, and Gallery. Weng also directs the Asian Contemporary Arts Consortium in San Francisco and manages the Asian collection and programs for the Kadist Foundation. 

  

Summer Palace
2006
140 minutes

7pm Tuesday
December 20, 2011

 $5 suggested donation, no one is turned away due to lack of funds. 

Oakland Asian Cultural Center
388 Ninth Street, Suite 290 (btwn. Franklin and Webster Street)
Oakland, CA 94607

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Movie Night at the OACC is sponsored by the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. For more information about the OACC, please visit www.oacc.cc. 

Movie Night at the OACC is a monthly screening night organized by Jackie Im. 

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