TOGETHER APART (Qu Youjia, 2020) + JINPA (Pema Tseden, 2018)
 

Together with Asian Movie Night based in Arhem, Filmhuis Cavia will screen selected films for two nights. In this year’s opening programme titled Songs of Mourning, Asian Movie Night presents four films that take us on a poetic journey into questions that art has been trying to grasp since the beginning of time, meditating on death, mourning and loss, or even healing, strength and joy, each in its own unique tune. 

Coming spring, let’s talk about death. Yes, death. Though we rarely put its name in our mouths, it follows closely behind our every mundane action, in the news, on our table, the edges of our bodies, as an inseparable part of life.

How do we encounter death?

In the magical realist short Together Apart (2019, CN), a woman finds her husband wandering around their house soon after his funeral. In the feature film Ode to Nothing (2018, PH), we follow an embalmer and her unusual encounter with an older woman’s corpse. -1287 (2014, JP) is a moving documentary that follows Kazuko as she comes to terms with her oncoming death and her thoughts on life, love, and money. Finally, Jinpa (2018, CN) is a Tibetan-language film on a stoic truck driver and his fateful encounter with a goat and a hitchhiker on a morbid mission. The four selections encounter death in the face of diverse cultural contexts and narratives, going beyond the taboo.

Together Apart, Jinpa, -1287 will be screened in Amsterdam’s Filmhuis Cavia on May 19th and 20th, and Ode to Nothing will be shown in Arnhem at Focus Filmtheatre on May 31st. Join us after the screening of -1287 in Amsterdam on May 20th, where there will be a talk with Mourning School’s initiator Lucie Gottlieb.
 

Friday May 19th:

TOGETHER APART
Qu Youjia | 2020 | China | 45’ | EN subs

Chinese funerals require much preparation: a three-day wake and various rituals precede the cremation. In the opening shots of this magical realist film, the widow returns home drained and starts tidying up the house, only to encounter her deceased husband casually sauntering down the stairs. She soon readopts a familiar routine: dressing him warmly, measuring his blood pressure and bickering with him. This absurd premise soon develops when visitors from the afterlife are expected and the daughter starts getting involved. As she seeks to solve the impossible situation, grandson Jiajia seems to be the only one unquestioningly embracing grandad's return. All shot in long, composed takes, replete with understated humour and tender reflections on family, loneliness, memory and the passing of time.

+

JINPA
Pema Tseden | 2018 | Tibet | 86’ | EN subs

On an isolated road passing through the vast barren plains of Tibet, a truck driver, who has accidentally run over a sheep, chances upon a young man, who is hitching a ride. As they drive and chat, the truck driver notices that his new friend has a silver dagger strapped to his leg. He comes to understand that his man is out to kill someone, who wronged him earlier in life. As he drops the hitchhiker off at a fork in the road, little does the truck driver realize that their short time together has changed everything, and that their destinies are inexorably intertwined.


Saturday May 20th:

https://radar.squat.net/en/event/amsterdam/filmhuis-cavia/2023-05-20/asi...