The annual 3 Rivers Film Fest includes two Asian movies in 2015: Thailand's Cemetery of Splendour (รักที่ขอนแก่น) and China's Mountains May Depart (山河故人). A summary of 2015's Cemetery of Splendour, from the 3RFF site:
Soldiers with a mysterious sleeping sickness are transferred to a temporary clinic in a former school. The memory-filled space becomes a revelatory world for housewife and volunteer Jenjira, as she watches over Itt, a handsome soldier with no family visitors. Jen befriends young medium Keng who uses her psychic powers to help loved ones communicate with the comatose men. Doctors explore ways, including colored light therapy, to ease the men’s troubled dreams. Jen discovers Itt’s cryptic notebook of strange writings and blueprint sketches. There may be a connection between the soldiers’ enigmatic syndrome and the mythic ancient site that lies beneath the clinic. Magic, healing, romance, and dreams are all part of Jen’s tender path to a deeper awareness of herself and the world around her.And of 2015's Mountains May Depart, from a review in The Guardian:
[The] movie is split into three parts, taking place in 1999, in 2014 and in 2025. We begin with a bunch of people dancing to the Pet Shop Boys’ Go West, and as the new century and millennium dawns, the movie shows China more or less obsessed with doing that: going West, embracing capitalism while at the same retaining the monolithic state structures of the past, and beginning to worship consumer goods as status symbols: stereos, cars, and perhaps most importantly mobile phones — a technology which the film shows retaining its fetishistic power for the next quarter-century.Cemetery of Splendour (รักที่ขอนแก่น) will play at the Melwood Screening Room in Oakland on November 7 at 3:00 pm and November 10 at 8:00 pm. Mountains May Depart (山河故人) will play on November 7 at Waterworks Cinema at 9:00 pm and on November 11 at the Harris Theater at 8:30 pm.
The festival runs from November 6 through November 15 at five theaters around Pittsburgh. Showtimes and ticket information are available at the 3RFF website and at the links in the last paragraph.
