Personal Info
Known For
Gender
Birthday
Place of Birth
Zhao Tao
Biography
Known for
Still Life
A town in Fengjie county is gradually being demolished and flooded to make way for the Three Gorges Dam. A man and woman visit the town to locate their estranged spouses, and become witness to the societal changes.
Living
A Touch of Sin
Four people in different provinces are driven to violent ends: An angry miner is enraged by corruption in his village. A migrant discovers the possibilities of owning a firearm. A receptionist is pushed beyond her limits by an abusive client. A young factory worker goes from one job to the next.
Ash Is Purest White
Set in China's underworld, this tale of love and betrayal follows a dancer who fired a gun to protect her mobster boyfriend during a fight. On release from prison 5 years later, she sets out to find him.
Caught by the Tides
Years after her boyfriend left her for the big city and promised to bring her there after he’s settled down, a Chinese woman sets out on a journey to be reunited with him.
Mountains May Depart
The life of Tao, and those close to her, is explored in three different time periods: 1999, 2014, and 2025.
24 City
As a decades-old state-run aeronautics munitions factory in downtown Chengdu, China is being torn down for the construction of the titular luxury apartment complex, director Jia Zhangke interviews various people affiliated with it about their experiences.
Platform
China’s rapid changes from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, as seen through the lives of four performers in a theater troupe.
Unknown Pleasures
Two disaffected, unemployed Chinese youth drift through life on the streets of their industrial town, their paths crossing with that of a local young singer and dancer working for a liquor company as a spokesmodel.
The World
At Beijing World Park, a bizarre cross-pollination of Las Vegas and Epcot Center where visitors can interact with famous international monuments without ever leaving the city’s suburbs, a security guard betrays his dancer girlfriend by pursuing another woman.
3.11 A Sense of Home Films
In memory of the Japanese earthquake on 3.11, each director presents a 3 minute and 11 second short film in tribute to those who were lost that day.
Shun Li and the Poet
A study of the friendship between a Chinese woman and a fisherman who came to Italy from Yugoslavia many years ago, who live in a small city-island in the Veneto lagoon.
Walking on the Wild Side
Han Jie’s feature debut draws on his own experiences growing up in a desolate mining district in northern China’s Shanxi province. A Chinese road movie, Walking on the Wild Side charts a young gang’s continuous flights from one kind of trouble to the next. Mirroring the stark and barren landscape, the film relays the grim story of these delinquents’ dreams of liberty and easy money. Played by nonprofessional actors who are real life troublemakers, the film offers a realism that is at once oppressive, cruel, and sympathetic.
Ten Thousand Waves
TEN THOUSAND WAVES is a 9-screen installation shot on location in China. The work poetically weaves together stories linking China’s ancient past and present. Through an architectural installation, the work explores the movement of people across countries and continents and meditates on unfinished journeys. Conceived and made over four years, TEN THOUSAND WAVES sees Julien collaborating with some of China’s leading artistic voices, including the legendary siren of Chinese cinema Maggie Cheung; rising star of Chinese film Zhao Tao; poet Wang Ping; master calligrapher Gong Fagen; artist Yang Fudong; acclaimed cinematographer Zhao Xiaoshi; and a 100-strong Chinese cast and crew. The film’s original musical score is by fellow East Londoner Jah Wobble and The Chinese Dub Orchestra and contemporary classical composer Maria de Alvear.
