A Tribute to Xie Jin continues in April with director Xie Jin in person on April 11
A Tribute to Xie Jin is organized by The Film Center of the Art Institute of Chicago in collaboration with the Film Bureau of the Ministry of Culture in Beijing; and presented here in cooperation with the Chinese Cultural Center, San Francisco, and the San Francisco International Film Festival '85. Special thanks to Janet Yang and Susanna Chan of New World Entertainment, Inc.
Working in Shanghai, Xie Jin has directed films since the early 1950s; his early films include A Wave of Unrest and Rendezvous at Orchid Bridge (both 1954) as well as Woman Basketball Player No. 5 (1957). He won the first 100 Flowers Award (China's “Oscar”) for Best Picture for the 1961 Red Detachment of Women (forerunner of the Cultural Revolution Ballet of the same name). The 1964 drama Two Stage Sisters was bitterly attacked, along with his earlier satire Big Li, Young Li and Old Li, by the “Gang of Four,” rendering Xie Jin unable to work during the Cultural Revolution. His recent features, Legend of Tianyun Mountain (1980) and The Herdsman (1982),received wide critical acclaim and were the top commercial films of their respective years. (See introduction, April calendar, page 3.)
