This week Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke‘s "A Touch of Sin" screened at the Cannes Film Festival, where it is being considered for the ”Golden Palm,” the highest prize at the festival.
The film is already creating buzz at home after the trailer was uploaded to Youku on Wednesday, the Hollywood Reporter writes.
“Judging from the trailer, it contains a lot of critical scenes based in reality that were created with no fear of the censorship system," one Weibo user commented.
Of particular note is that the film seems to be based on a number of real events in recent Chinese history.
For example, there's a 2009 case where a pedicurist killed a local official after he reportedly slapped her in the face with a wad of cash when she refused to sleep with him, and a notorious 2011 high-speed train accident that killed 40 people. Other parts of the trailer seem to be referring to the suicides at Foxconn factories.
The big question, of course, is whether a film so critical of modern China will actually be shown in the country it scrutinizes?
Right now things look hopeful, and the film is being made by partnership with a state-run film studio. In an interview with the Globe and Mail Jia seems confident, telling the reporter: “The film has been approved by the censor board and we hope it will be released in autumn.”
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