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Suzhou River
LOU Ye | China · Germany | 2000 | 83 minutes | 35mm
In Mandarin, with English subtitles
A motorcycle courier in his mid-twenties is asked to drive the 16-year-old daughter of a smuggler. They fall in love, but when she figures out that he is kidnapping her for a ransom, she jumps into the river, and he is jailed for murder. After his release he meets a dancer — her alter ego.
April 6 | 6:30 PM | SVA Theatre | Q&A with Special Guest
Blind Massage
LOU Ye | China · France | 2014 | 114 minutes | DCP
In Mandarin, with English subtitles
Nanjing. At a massage center run by the blind, damaged bodies find relief beneath sensitive fingers. A new couple comes to work at the center. The others are drawn to them. Within this community, we witness seduction, suffering and — above all — the search for love.
April 6 | 9:00 PM | SVA Theatre
Love and Bruises
LOU Ye | China · France | 2011 | 105 minutes | 35mm
In French and Mandarin, with English subtitles
Hua, a young teacher from Beijing, is a recent arrival in Paris. Exiled in an unknown city, she wanders between her tiny apartment and the university, drifting between former lovers and recent French acquaintances. She meets Mathieu, a young worker who falls madly in love with her. Possessed by an insatiable desire for her body, he treats Hua like a dog. An
intense affair begins, marked by Mathieu’s passionate embraces and harsh verbal abuse. When Hua determines to leave her lover, she discovers the strength of her addiction, and the vital role he has come to play in her life as a woman.
April 8 | 8:30 PM | Symphony Space
Mystery
LOU Ye | China · France | 2012 | 98 minutes | DCP
In Mandarin, with English subtitles
Lu Jie has no idea her husband Yongzhao is leading a double life, until the day she sees him entering a hotel with a young woman. Her world crumbles — and it’s just the beginning. A few hours later, the young woman dies beneath the wheels of a car. The police officer in charge of the case refuses to believe her death was accidental.
April 9 | 9:30 PM | Symphony Space
Summer Palace
LOU Ye | China · France | 2006 | 140 minutes | 35mm
In Mandarin and German, with English subtitles
China, 1989, two young lovers play their complex, erotic, love/hate relationship against a volatile backdrop of political unrest. Beautiful Yu Hong leaves her village, her family and her boyfriend to study in Beijing, where she discovers a world of intense sexual and emotional experimentation and falls madly in love with fellow student Zhou Wei. Their relationship becomes one of dangerous games, as all around them; their fellow students begin to demonstrate, demanding democracy and freedom. Screening following Lou Ye’s 2001 short film In Shanghai.
April 10 | 4:30 PM | Symphony Space
April 13 | 6:30 PM | SVA Theatre | Q&A with Special Guest
Purple Butterfly
LOU Ye | China · France | 2003 | 127 minutes | 35mm
In Mandarin and Japanese, with English subtitles
1927. Manchuria. Itami, a young Japanese man, falls deeply in love with Cynthia, a beautiful Chinese girl. Returning sorrowfully from the train station where she has bid her lover farewell, Cynthia witnesses her brother’s bloody murder at the hands of Japanese right-wing extremists. Three years later, Cynthia — now known as Ding Hui — is working for Purple Butterfly, a resistance group planning to assassinate Yamamoto, head of the
Japanese secret service in a Japan-occupied Shanghai. Itami is also in Shanghai, operating as a secret agent and reporting directly to Yamamoto. Arriving at Shanghai station to meet his fiancée, Szeto, a young Chinese man, is mistaken by the assembled resistance fighters for the assassin they recruited to eliminate Yamamoto. Violence erupts ended up with his fiancée shot dead in the crossfire. Szeto escapes with the Purple Butterfly members, all of whom believe him to be the hired killer. Only Ding Hui realizes the truth… Thus, three destinies are linked by chance and set in tragic motion.
April 12 | 6:00 PM | Symphony Space | Q&A with Special Guest
Spring Fever
LOU Ye | China · France | 2009 | 115 minutes | Digital Video
In Mandarin, with English subtitles
Nanjing, springtime. Wang Ping’s wife suspects him of adultery. She hires Luo Haitao to spy on him and discovers that her husband’s lover is a man, Jiang Cheng. It’s with this man that Luo Haitao and his girlfriend, Li Jing, form a torrid love triangle. For all three, it’s the beginning of asphyxiating, sultry nights of physical abandon that exalt the senses. A sulfurous journey into the confines of jealousy and obsessive love.
April 19 | 8:00 PM | SVA Theatre | Q&A with Special Guest
