Chinese film wins jury award at Palm Springs Int'l Film Festival

Chinese film "Dead pigs" won a jury award at the 30th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF).

Chinese film "Dead pigs" won a jury award at the 30th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF). [Photo：IC]

The movie by Cathy Yan received the Ricky Jay Magic of Cinema Award, an honor for a film "that exemplifies a pioneering spirit in furthering the language of storytelling and the magic of cinema."

"Dead Pigs" is Yan's directorial debut. It is inspired by a real incident of dead pigs floating in a river in China, and expands to cover the stories of five characters - a pig farmer, a salon owner, a busboy, an expat architect and a rich girl. The narrative is set against China's fast urburnization in recent years.

The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018 and won a special jury award for Ensemble Acting, with stars including Vivian Wu, Haoyu Yang, and Meng Li.

Yan was born in China and grew up in the United States. She said the film is "a little dark" but "also funny and dramatic."

The film is scheduled to be shown in theatres in China and the United States later this month.

(Story includes material sourced from Xinhua)