PRESENTING WITH LU CHUAN "CITY OF LIFE & DEATH 南京! 南京!" IN PARIS

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<![endif]I had the chance yesterday during the 8 th Paris Cinema International Film Festivalto meet for the second time Chinese writer/director Lu Chuan陸川, 4 years after the French theatrical release of his second feature film «  Kekexili : Mountain Patrol 可可西里» (at that time, I interviewed him for a French magazine named “Mad Asia”).  

This time, I actually had the honour to introduce with him at the festival, his last  movie “ City of Life and Death南京!南京!”, a powerful and moving masterpiece about the Nanking Massacre of 1937, which took almost five years to be made (It was actually presented at the HAF – Asian Film Financing Forumback in 2005).

This movie that I discovered on big screen last April at the Udine Far East Film Festivalwas a huge success in China last year and won the top prize at the San Sebastian Film Festival in 2009 (Best Film), two awards at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards in Australia (Best Directing + Best Cinematography) and two prizes at the Asian Film Awards last March in Hong Kong (Best Film + Best Director).

Among the few questions that I asked the director during the presentation, there was one about a rumour that the movie was shot in colour in the beginning and then put in black and white to tone down the violence. And this rumour was actually wrong. It was an aesthetic choice decided since the beginning that it’d be a black and white movie.

“ City ofLifeand Death” will be released officially in the French theatres onJuly 21th, 2010and I think I’ll go to watch it again.

Fred Ambroisine (July 8 th, 2010)