‘Yellow Earth’ Restoration Decorates Pingyao Festival Lineup

A restored edition of Chen Kaige’s “Yellow Earth” is one of the highlights of the selection for the 8th edition of China’s boutique Pingyao International Film Festival. The film, which helped put Chinese art-house cinema on the map overseas and signaled a new era of Chinese directors, now referred to the FIfth Generation, was originally released 40 years ago.

The festival, which runs Sept. 24-30, will open with the world premiere of Liu Juan’s “A River Without Tears.”

The festival’s Hidden Dragons section of Chinese-made films includes: the Asian premiere of Ma Lanhua’s “Hello, Spring”; the Asian premiere of Tang Yongkan’s “Stars and the Moon”; and world premieres of Wang Lina’s “Village Music”; Zhu Xin’s “A Song River”; Yang Suiyi’s “Karst”; Luka Yang Yuanyuan’s “Chinatown Cha-Cha”; Shen Tao’s “Floating Clouds Obscure the Sun”; Siu Koon-ho’s “True Love, For Once in My Life”; Zhai Yixiang’s “Reflections in the Lake”; Zhou Quan’s “Betwixt and Between”; and Xu Lei’s “Green Wave.”

The international-facing Crouching Tigers section includes: Paula Carneiro’s “Savanna and the Mountain” from Uruguay; Matthew Rankin’s award-winning “Universal Language”; India Donaldson’s “Good One”; Hernan Rosselli’s “Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed’; Tyler Taormina’s “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point”; Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez’ “Sujo”; Boris Lojkine’s “The Story of Souleymane”; Santiago Lozano Alvarez’ “I Saw Three Black Lights”; Carlo Sironi’s “My Summer With Irene”; Ramon Zuercher’s “The Sparrow in the Chimney”; and Neo Sora’s “Happyend.”

Gala screenings go to Yonfan’s new documentary “Crossing Years”; Patricia Mazuy’s “Visiting Hours”; Roberto Minervini’s “The Damned”; Jonas Trueba’s “The Other Way Around”; Shiori Ito’s documentary “Black Box Diaries”; Paola Cortellesi’s “There’s Still Tomorrow”; and Okuyama Hiroshi’s “My Sunshine.”

The extensive retrospective section also includes: Bille August’s 1987 film “Pelle the Conqueror”; Ermanno Olmi’s 1978 “The Tree of Wooden Clogs”; Satyajit Ray’s 1955 “Pather Panchali”; and Abbas Kiarostami’s 1992 “And Life Goes On.”