For non-Columbia affiliates, registration is required to access the Morningside campus. Registering will generate an email with a QR code which must be presented along with a government-issued ID (your name must match exactly the name registered for the event) at either 116th Street & Broadway or 116th Street & Amsterdam gates for entry. Please register by using a unique email address (one email address per registrant) by Jan. 30 at 4:00pm for campus access.
Speakers:
Feng Mei 梅峰, Director, screenwriter, and Professor, Department of Screenwriting & Film Studies, Beijing Film Academy
Yihong Shi 史依弘, Peking Opera performer and actress in the film
Jane Gaines, Professor of Film in the Faculty of the Arts, Columbia University
Junlei Yang, Professor of Cinematic Aesthetics, Fudan University, Visiting Scholar, WEAI, Columbia University
Introduced by:
Jim Cheng, Director, C. V. Starr East Asian Library, Columbia University
Moderator:
Ying Qian, Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University
Set in 1943 in wartime Chongqing and its vicinities, and an adaptation of Lao She’s novella, Mr. No Problem 不成问题的问题 (2016) has garnered many awards at film festivals, and is dubbed a “New Literati film” by China-based critics, referring to the film’s intelligent mobilization of traditional aesthetics and its satirical treatment of the Chinese elite society. The filmmaker, critic and Beijing Film Academy professor Feng Mei, will join the post-screening discussion with Columbia film faculty.
Synopsis: Mr. No Problem (Chinese: 不成问题的问题), is a 2016 Chinese black-and-white film directed by screenwriter Feng Mei 梅峰in his directorial debut, based on a 1943 novella by Lao She. Starring Wei Fan, Tao Yin, Chao Zhang and Yihong Shi , Mr. No Problem 不成问题的问题 was premiered at the 2016 Tokyo International Film Festival, where it received the Best Artistic Contribution Award.
Speaker's Bio:
Feng Mei is an award-wining Chinese director and screenwriter, and a professor at the Department of Screenwriting and Film Studies of Beijing Film Academy. He has won the Best Screenplay at Cannes Film Festival in 2009 for Spring Fever. In 2016, he directed Mr. No Problem, for which he received the Best Artistic Contribution Award at the 29th Tokyo International Film Festival and Best Adapted Screenplay at the 53rd Golden Horse Awards. His second feature film, Love Song 1980 (2020), was selected for the 33rd Tokyo International Film Festival.
A reception will take place from 7:00pm in IAB 918.
This event is hosted by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and co-sponsored by C. V. Starr East Asian Library and Film and Media Studies of School of the Arts.
Registration: To attend this event in-person, please register HERE.
