'Make film to reveal common feelings': Jia Zhangke
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Twelve years after having made his first film, Jia Zhangke, a young Chinese director has found himself still in a mood of a special curiosity and confidence in making films in China.
It was the fifth time Jia came to Toronto in the past decade, a span in which he made five long films, with three of them included in the "top 30 films in the decade," and he himself was awarded as "directors of the decade" by the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
"The award has given a signal that the western audience have become more interested in the contemporary China and its people," the 39-year-old director told Xinhua on Saturday, adding that it's a very important reason the TIFF panel gave him the honor.
Jia said that all his three films revealed common feelings how a everyman conquered various obstacles and fulfilled his target to some extent, which is also of some help to people in other countries.
Only two directors got the award "directors of the decade," nominated and decided by a panel composed of 60 film historians, critics and film archive curators around the world. The other winner is from Thailand.
"I feel like I learn the world in small episodes, bits and pieces of life," said Jia, dubbed by critics as a leading figure of China's Sixth Generation directors, a group interested more in contemporary China and the fates of the ordinary people in the country.
The "Sixth Generation" of film directors in China, follows the "Fifth Generation," whose members include Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige. The Fifth Generation directors occupy themselves mostly with histories, represented by films "Red Sorghum," "Raise the Red Lantern," and "Farewell my Concubine."
The Sixth Generation filmmakers often employ improvisational techniques with non-professional actors to better stimulate the feeling of an "everyday" China they seek to capture.
Jia accounts for the method in his own words: "In the three films Platform,' 'till Life,' and 'World,' I tried a new narrative method to connect everyone together in a film, similar to the way you use a computer -- you click here, you click there, each time leading you to another location."
The graduate of the Beijing Film Academy told reporter that this is how the world and its experiences are connected to one another. "These small episodes create the big picture, or that's the intention."
As for Piers Handling, director of TIFF, each of Jia's films articulate a sensual structure of feeling, through which the audience can see and feel our way to coming to grips with a new, changing world.
"I hope my award will help Chinese people to establish their culture confidence," said the director.
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