01 / 05
01 / 05
The Moon Palace
大酒楼
QIU Jiongjiong
- 104 min
- 2007
- Documentary
- Sichuanese Dialect
- English and Chinese Subtitles
Content Advisory: This film contains scenes of tobacco use
10:00 AM, SAT, OCT 24
Innis Town Hall
Screening
Mr. QIU is the proprietor of the Moon Palace, and also the director’s father. Extremely fond of drinking, Mr. QIU is a connoisseur of liquor with his own spectacular theories. The patrons of the restaurant are usually friends of his, among whom there are quite a few drinking enthusiasts. After having a couple of drinks, the banter gets more and more lively; once everyone is duly intoxicated, drunken singing erupts. It’s like that the three local rivers merge into a pond of liquor, and everyone is having a good swim in it carefree.
The director’s fourth, fifth and eldest aunts are also stakeholders of the Moon Palace. The three sisters are playing cards while receiving the interview. The topics range widely from soap opera gossip to political scandals, unsophisticated, vivacious, and realistic. Aside from the drinking table, the card table is also an important platform for interpersonal communication at this place. The next generation, who grow up in such an infectious environment, inherit the liveliness, yet somehow exhibit traits of narcissism and sentimentalism.
Sitting around the drinking table, Mr. QIU and his friends joke about birth, aging, illness and death —life’s ultimate destination, which they discuss with great relish, even yearning. It’s not that they don’t love life. They love life and death as much. Will such a well of emotions pass on to their descendants naturally, generation after generation?
Director
QIU Jiongjiong (b. 1977, Leshan, Sichuan Province) is a Chinese contemporary artist and filmmaker. Since 2006, he has developed a distinctive cinematic language marked by vivid dialect dialogue, theatrical mise-en-scène, and stylized characterizations. The local history of Leshan and the history of his family, which has deep roots in traditional Sichuan opera, recur throughout his work.
His filmography includes two documentary shorts, Ode to Joy (2008) and Portrait of Mr. Huang (2009); four documentary features, The Moon Palace (2007), Madame (2010), My Mother’s Rhapsody (2011), and Mr. Zhang Believes (2015); and his first fiction feature, A New Old Play (2021). Several of his earlier works were selected among the “Best Ten Documentaries of the Year” at the China Independent Film Festival. Mr. Zhang Believes premiered at the Locarno International Film Festival and has since screened internationally, including at the 15th MoMA Documentary Fortnight. A New Old Play won the Special Jury Prize at Locarno, the Firebird Award for Best Film and the FIPRESCI Prize at the Hong Kong International Film Festival, and the Young Jury Award at the Festival des 3 Continents, among other honours.
Credits
- DirectorQIU Jiongjiong
- CinematographerQIU Jiongjiong, YANG Yong, LU Wei
- EditorQIU Jiongjiong
- MusicDIAO Lili