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Dunhuang Projected

Ata  /  Journey to the West

Journey to the West
October 23, 2016 - 9:00 am
In-person: 
theater director Peter Sellars.

Please note:  filmmakers Chakme Rinpoche and Jiang Jiayan are no longer able to join us for this program.

This screening takes place at the James Bridges TheaterOnline advance sales available.  Cash only at the box office.  There will be a group meditation open to audience members from 9–9:25 a.m. in the UCLA Sculpture Garden, adjacent to the theater where the film will screen at 9:45 a.m.  Chai tea will be served after the meditation.

North American Premiere!

Ata  (China, 2014)


Tianyu is a sightless boy whose mother believes his only chance for a future is to become a champion disabled Ping Pong player.  Tianyu has other ideas—envisioning a much wider world than his mother understands.  When he goes missing, she is forced to see things as he does in this beautiful, spiritually suffused debut feature from Tibetan writer-director Chakme Rinpoche.

DCP, color, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 94 min.  DIR/SCR: Chakme Rinpoche.  EXEC PROD: Jiang Jiayan.  CAST: Wang Ning, Jiao Gang, Meng Tianyu.

West Coast Premiere!

Journey to the West  (France/Taiwan, 2014)


Malaysian-Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-liang reinterprets the spiritual allegory of the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West as cinematic performance art.  With mesmerizing slowness, a Buddhist monk (played by Tsai’s alter ego Lee Kang-sheng) inches forward through the streets of Marseille.  Along the way Tsai’s camera reveals a delicate interplay of concentration, urbanism and everyday life.

Blu-ray, color, 56 min.  DIR: Tsai Ming-liang.  CAST: Lee Kang-sheng, Denis Lavant.