Blind Mountain / Mang Shan
China, 102’ , 2007

Directed by: Li Yang
Script: Li Yang
Producer: Li Yang, Li Shan, Alexandra Sun
Production company: Studio Canal International
Cinematography: Lin Jong
Editing: Li Yang, Mary Stephen
Music: -
Cast: Huang Lu, Yang Youan, Zhang Yuling, He Yunle, Jia Yinggao, Zhang Youping

Format: 35 mm, boja
Running time: 102'

Synopsis
'Blind Mountain' follows young woman, Bai Xuemei, in the early 1990s who attempts to find work to help pay for her college education. In the process, she is drugged, kidnapped and sold as a bride to a villager in the Qinling Mountains of China's Shaanxi province. Trapped in the fiercely traditional town, the young woman finds that her avenues of escape are all blocked. As she searches for allies, including a young boy, a school teacher and a mailman, she suffers from being raped by her 'husband' and continued beatings at the hands of the villagers, her husband, and her husbands' parents. 'Blind Mountain’ is follow up to authors first feature, ‘Blind Shaft’.

Directors Biography
Li Yang was born in Xian, China in 1959. He studied film directing at the Beijing Broadcasting Institute and at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, Germany. While at the Academy he wrote and directed several documentaries – Women’s Kingdom (1991), Happy Swan Song (1994), and The Wake (1996). In 2003, he wrote, directed and produced his first feature Blind Shaft. The film won a Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival 2003, and has gone on to win over 20 other major awards internationally, including Golden Bib at Zagreb Film Festival too. Blind Mountain is his second feature and follow up to Blind Shaft.

Reviews
Once again Li Yang, has directed a fascinating portrayal of the contradictions inherent in the world’s fastest growing economy. Increasingly polarised between rich and poor, educated and non-educated, rural and urban, Yang brings together the most unsavoury elements of China’s urban and rural culture. Like the message in Blind Shaft, Blind Mountain is a sad but true comment on modern China’s progress. / David Stanners, Eye for Film.com

Location and screening schedule:
matinee: SC Cinema, Monday, October 22nd at 9.00
premiere: SC Cinema, Monday, October 22nd at 20.00
reprisal: Cinema Europe, Tuesday, October 23rd at 10.00