City of Cathay
This 26-minute-long film shows for the very first time a classic piece of Chinese art: the painted roll “City of Cathay”, property of the Taipei National Museum.
It depicts on eleven meters of silk daily life in the capital city of Kaifeng with such accuracy in small-scale details that the parchment remains today a memory treasure.
Type (Documentaire / Documentaire fiction / Série documentaire)DocumentaryGenre en anglaisArts & Culture Directed by Alain Jaubert Supported by ANGOA, CNC, Musée National du Palais, ProcirepDistributed by Artline FIlms Festival(s)Sélection officielle, FIFA ( Montréal 2012) / Sélection officielle, Rassegna Internazionale del Cinema Archeologico (Rovereto, 2011)Year2011Duration26min
The director explores this “giant miniature” by focusing on chosen scenes and associates them with relevant quotes from nowadays’ documentaries. This way of describing the parchment highlights on-going customs that have persisted throughout centuries, or define by contrast the differences between traditional and modern Chinese society.
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