“Jia is one of the leading filmmakers of our time. His works advance the art
of cinema in ways that are dazzlingly innovative, while also being precisely
attuned to the radical new demands of 21st century society.” 
SHELLY KRACER, CINEMA SCOPE

"A modern master of postmodern discontent, Jia Zhang-ke is among the most
strikingly gifted filmmakers working today.”
MANOHLA DARGIS NEW YORK TIMES ·

APRIL 8-14

The absence of any films by the contemporary Chinese master Jia Zhang-ke in Pacific Cinémathèque’s recent “Best of the Decade” exhibition may have struck some as a curious omission. Heck, it struck us as a curious omission. (Well, not really — but that’s no reflection on Jia’s work and has everything to do with the personal and arbitrary nature of such lists, not to mention the blind spots that inevitably afflict one’s critical purview.) Jia’s reputation is enormous — he’s one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of our time — and we did fully expect him to figure prominently in other such “best-of” lists and polls. Which has proved to be the case. In a survey of more than 60 international curators, programmers and historians conducted by the TIFF Cinematheque in Toronto (our Jia-less response to this poll formed the basis for Pacific Cinémathèque's “best-of” program), two Jia films, Platform and Still Life, ranked amongst the top three vote-getters (topping the poll was Syndrome and a Century by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, whose Tropical Malady was one of our selections). In another poll of 100 participants conducted by the New York-based magazine Film Comment (and published in its January-February  2010 issue), three Jia films appeared on a list of the top 50 films of the decade — Platform (#11), The World (#24), and Still Life (#27) — and Jia himself topped the poll naming the decade’s best directors (Apichatpong came in second). In yet another poll, conducted by dGenerate Films, a U.S.-based distributor of Chinese cinema, 47 programmers, critics and directors were asked to choose the best Chinese-language films of the 2000s. Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love (also a Pacific Cinémathèque selection) topped the votes, but three films by Jia ranked in the top ten — and Jia was, by a very wide margin, the director with the most mentions on participants’ ballots.  

As an addendum to January/February’s “Best of the Decade” exhibition, we present five major works by one of the contemporary cinema’s greatest artists.
– Jim Sinclair, Executive Director