Ballina Film Club’s spring programme continues next week with Still Life at Ballina Arts Centre on Tuesday May 5 at 8pm. Jia Zhangke's Still Life, a deeply felt and quietly impressive film, was the winner of the Golden Lion at last year's Venice film festival, and features the superb and elegant actress Zhao Tao, charismatic star of his previous films Unknown Pleasures (2002 ) and Platform (2000 ).
Still Life is a palimpsest of ideas and intentions – a meditation on mortality, a contemporary drama-documentary about an entire city preparing to be drowned in the service of China's Three Gorges hydro-electric dam project, and a portrait of a vast nation preparing for turbo-capitalist superpower status, but retaining the autocratic political habits of communism: High-handedly ordering the displacement of a million-and-a-half people, and the abolition of thousands of years of history.
Ballina Arts Centre is open from 10am to 5pm Monday to Friday, and 10am to 3pm on Saturdays. For information/booking, contact Ballina Arts Centre, Barrett Street, Ballina, Co Mayo, phone 096 73593, e-mail [email protected]. www.ballinaartscentre.com
