A new film from Mainland China
Presented by the UCSB MultiCultural Center and Interdisciplinary Humanities Center
With special guests director MENG JING-HUI and screenwriter LIAO YI-MEI
Monday, November 25 / 7:30 pm / Free
MultiCultural Center Theatre
Discussion and Reception to follow

This delirious and caustic fable of ambition, success, and its consequences tells the story of an indecisive young poet, the lonely color-blind woman who loves him, and his entrepreneurial friend who leaves the city to raise a new breed of black chickens. An allegory of the emergent generation in China seeking overnight fame, wealth, and true love in the vacuum of the post-socialist period, the film is sprinkled with entertaining plot devices (such as the miraculous black eggs and a magical pirate CD), visual fantasy, and the dark angst characteristic of China’s “sixth-generation” filmmakers. Through an amusing and stirring sequence of strange events and images, the film expresses the inner conflict between strength and weakness, dream and reality.

Chicken Poets is director Meng Jinghui’s debut film, after a decade as the best known experimental theatre director in China. His playful, entertaining, and highly improvisational productions have earned him international recognition as he captures his country’s thirtysomething generation caught between communist ideals and the rising tide of capitalism. Many of his theatrical techniques surface in his inaugural film, reflecting an original style of visual culture that is unique to Meng’s work. Meng and screenwriter Liao Yimei will answer questions from the audience after the screening, and discuss the state of avant-garde arts in China under the current shifts in political ideology and the reforming economy.

Co-sponsored by the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, Departments of Dramatic Art, Film Studies, East Asian Studies, the Center for Global Studies, and the East Asia Center.

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