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Shen Nu (The Goddess) has been long considered one of the greatest Chinese films ever made — and one of the silent cinema’s final masterpieces. The legendary actress Ruan Lingyu is a Shanghai streetwalker raising her son during the day while plying her trade at night. She falls under the “protection” of a local gangster but still manages to save enough to send her son to a good private school. Yet when some of the parents become aware of her line of work, they force school officials to decide whether they’re willing to educate the son of such a woman.
Sospeso performs an original score by Joshua Cody, featuring Elliott Sharp on electric guitar.
2005 has been named the “Chinese Centennial Film Year” by the China Film Archive; although motion pictures were exhibited and shot in China by foreigners within months of the first screenings in Europe and the U.S., 1905 is the first date in which there is concrete evidence of films made in China by the Chinese themselves. Thus, the Film Society and the College of Staten Island/City University of New York take this occasion to celebrate this most auspicious anniversary by presenting an extraordinary selection of key works from Chinese film history.
The festival is organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the College of Staten Island/City University of New York, in partnership with the Film & Television Art and Technology School at Shanghai University, the China Film Archive, the Asia Society, China Institute, and CUNY-TV (City Cinematheque), with the support of the China Film Bureau and the Consulate General of China in New York. The film series was curated by Richard Peña and Ying Zhu.
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