MUBI PRESENTS: JAMILIA
dir. Aminatou Echard, 2018
84 mins. Kyrgistan/Russia.
In Kyrgyz with English subtitles.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 1 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, AUGUST 5 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7 – 7:30 PM

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“It’s hard being a human, but being a common person in China is even more difficult.” – UP THE YANGTZE

Who gets left behind in the name of progress? In these two documentaries, low-income people struggle to stay afloat in the midst of China’s rapid economic growth and bold technological endeavors. In STREET LIFE, director Zhao Dayong offers a vérité portrait of migrants from rural China living in Shanghai who occupy Nanjing Street, an upscale shopping district, collecting and selling recyclables. In UP THE YANGTZE, directed by Yung Chang, a teenaged girl whose home will soon be flooded by the impending Three Gorges Dam finds herself working on a cruise ship offering tours of the river that will soon swallow all she knows. With these two films, the directors offer portraits of people who have no other option but to make way for progress- to bend to its will and hope that the future will be kinder.

STREET LIFE (南京路)
Dir. Zhao Dayong, 2006
China, 98 mins.
In Mandarin with English subtitles.

MONDAY, JULY 1 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, JULY 7 – 5 PM
THURSDAY, JULY 18 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, JULY 21 – 7:30 PM

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Zhao Dayong’s first nonfiction film is a colorful and honest portrait of a group of migrants who live and work on Nanjing Road, an upscale shopping district in Shanghai, collecting and selling recyclables. There’s “Big Fatty,” the wise fool who sings poems and rhymes referencing Chinese literature and politics; Ah Qiao, the dishonest entrepreneur who purchases cans off the other migrants; and “Black Skin”- the anti-hero of the story, whose innocence and hard-working nature leaves him susceptible to attack. After Ah Qiao betrays him, Black Skin spirals into apathy and insanity.

“These beggars and litter-collectors exist as invisible and forgotten shadows of Shanghai, moving in a sort of parallel reality but strictly linked to the same boom that excites the city. It is just the other side of the capitalist coin, the extreme poverty of the periphery juxtaposed with the growing wealth of the center, adopting the same capitalist strategies for surviving in a dramatic, grotesque fashion.” – Sara Beretta, “A Mad Dance on Shanghai Streets: Zhao Dayong’s Street Life”

After graduating from China’s Lu Xun Art Academy in 1992, Zhao Dayong worked for a number of years as a professional artist and advertising director, first in Beijing and later in Guangzhou. In 1997, he founded Guangzhou Dake, a design company. He was also founding editor of Culture & Morals, a now deceased journal for the contemporary arts in China. Zhao began exploring the medium of digital video in 2002. His first documentary film, STREET LIFE, premiered at Austria’s Viennale in October 2006. Zhao’s second documentary film, GHOST TOWN, a collage of stories that take place in the former government seat of Zhiziluo in remote northwestern Yunnan province, premiered at the New York Film Festival in 2009. His first fiction feature, THE HIGH LIFE, premiered at the Hong Kong International Film Festival in 2010, winning both the FIPRESCI Award and the Silver Digital Award. THE HIGH LIFE made its European premiere in the main competition at the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival in November 2010, where it won both the Werner Fassbinder Prize and the FIPRESCI Jury Prize.

UP THE YANGTZE (沿江而上)
Dir. Yung Chang, 2008
China, 94 mins.
In Mandarin with English subtitles.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 3 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, JULY 9 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, JULY 14 – 7:30 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 24 – 7:30 PM

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“Everywhere there are reminders of progress and sacrifice.”

The Three Gorges Dam, the largest power station in the world in terms of installed capacity, spans the Yangtze River, the largest and most revered river in Asia. It’s named for the three gorges it flooded, the Qutang, Wu Xia, and Xiling, which stretch for 124 miles and were renowned for their scenic beauty. Reportedly 1.3 million people (and up to 2 million) living in 1,500 cities, towns, and villages along the river were displaced as a result of its implementation.

In 2007, before the waters rose completely, 16 year old Yu Shui sets off from her impoverished family and their riverside home to work on a Yangtze river cruise called Farewell Cruises, offering a final glimpse of the Yangtze to wealthy tourists before the waters rise. Her parents, illiterate farmers, are saddened by having to send their daughter off to work instead of allowing her to continue her studies. Yu Shui suddenly has a new English name, Cindy, and is thrust into a whole new world where she must cater to wealthy foreigners on their vacations. Along with Yu Shui is Chen Bo Yu, or “Jerry,” an only child from a middle-class family who, with far less to lose, takes his job far less seriously. As Yu Shui struggles to navigate the modern world, her family seeks higher ground.

“It’s a tender and profound portrait of unwieldy, mass-scale modernization at work, a process multifaceted enough to include Yu Shui’s dawning optimism, Chen Bo Yu’s dispiriting setbacks, and a cheery tourist rendition of “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean” that also serves as a lament for tradition’s demise.” -Nick Schager, Slant

Yung Chang is the director of UP THE YANGTZE (沿江而上), CHINA HEAVYWEIGHT (千錘百鍊), and THE FRUIT HUNTERS. He is currently completing a screenplay for his first dramatic feature, Eggplant (茄子), and in post-production for a feature documentary about Robert Fisk, the controversial Middle East correspondent, co-produced by the National Film Board of Canada. His latest, Gatekeeper, is on the festival circuit and streaming on Field of Vision, Laura Poitras’ curated online film unit. Chang is the recipient of the Don Haig Award, the Yolande and Pierre Perrault Award, and the Guggenheim Emerging Artist Award. He is a member of the Directors Guild of Canada. In 2013, he was invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization behind the Academy Awards / Oscars®.

FINGERILLA
dir. Micah Vassau, 2017
90 mins. United States.

THURSDAY, JULY 25 – 7:30 PM (with cast & crew in person for Q&A)
ONE NIGHT ONLY! (This event is $10)

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In a far away, fucked up land, there lives a broke country-fried blonde who isn’t so bright… Consuming raw chicken and collecting beer cans out of the river to make ends meet, she spends her ditzy days caring for her decrepit grandmother in their dilapidated abode. But after a sinister demon of static steals an egg that she believes to be her baby, she is flung unto a seriously perverse quest to be reunited with said egg.

Rummaging through her shabby woodland town by jet ski, inhaling all the drugs that cross her path, she encounters a myriad of total nutjobs. Some try to turn her on to God, some let her suck on their toes, while others pour 40s over her head, or seek to demolish her innocent soul.

No childhood imagination is safe from this disturbingly depraved fable of nooky, dope, and degeneracy. Savvily shot on VHS, edited by cerebrums of relentless corruption, and scored with pretty much any genre of music you can think of, FINGERILLA is a fairy tale trauma you’ll certainly want to spare your children of.

CONTENT WARNING: Seriously… leave your kids at home.

There’s only one way to prepare for the return of the maestro of low-fi culture clash and camp, and that is to throw ourselves at the altar of alterity and join what were once called degenerates. Jon Moritsugu will soon be releasing NUMBSKULL REVOLUTION with long-time collaborator Amy Davis, which promises to be a satire of art world antics in the desert. We can expect it to include themes of otherness in American dystopia, a messy avalanche of sound, and mutated forms of self-expression, all of which can be previewed in this summer series. Moritsugu’s early films take apart the postmodern moment with mutilated joy, expressing the senseless with style and dragging whatever constitutes punk culture straight to the trash bin.

All month we will also be selling special Jon Moritsugu merch. What kind of merch, you ask? We can’t explain online.

MY DEGENERATION
dir. Jon Moritsugu, 1990
70 mins. United States.

TUESDAY, JULY 2 – 10 PM
SUNDAY, JULY 7 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, JULY 16 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 19 – 10 PM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 24 – 10 PM

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Continuing the rich legacy of late-night Girl Group mondo pictures, MY DEGENERATION updates the hippie sleaze of BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS and the punk delirium of LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, THE FABULOUS STAINS with a dispatch from the late ‘80s art school wastoid pukescape. Just as ‘indie rock’ was about to cash its check with the meteoric ascent of Nirvana and company, the film follows teen band Bunny Love’s rise to the ambassadorship of the American Beef Institute. Replete with fuzzed-out regurgitations of the midnight movie semiosphere, it’s the cinematic equivalent of the sub-genre Robert Christgau once referred to as “pig-fuck.” Moritsugu’s future wife Amy Davis co-stars, plus a parade of top-notch tracks from Vomit Launch, The Fizzbombs, Halo of Flies, and Bongwater. So puerile, it caused American’s favorite film critic (and BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS scribe) Roger Ebert to walk out after 7 minutes. Two middle fingers all the way up!

*Preceded by the shorts MOMMY MOMMY WHERE’S MY BRAIN (1986) and L’IL DEBBIE SNACKWHORE OF NEW YORK CITY (1987).

MOD FUCK EXPLOSION
dir. Jon Moritsugu, 1994
67 mins. United States.

FRIDAY, JULY 5 – 10 PM
THURSDAY, JULY 11 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, JULY 15 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 26 – 7:30 PM **Q AND A WITH DESI DE VALLE (M16)!**

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The Nipponese bikers have leather jackets and London, a broken-family blonde, wants a leather jacket more than anything. Her sister Nasty has one, but she’s a post-Quaalude comic artist and won’t give it up. London’s brother is a dumb wannabe mod, clinging to a style that is just nativism with thick-framed glasses. Top Mod Madball sums up their situation with a joke:

“Why did Hitler kill himself?”

“To get to the other side!”

All London has to do is party with the bikers and tell Kazumi that he has a great bod, but instead she’s in love with death-obsessed M-16. Cleopatra, the supernatural succubus and queen of feces, tries to give London some T-R-U-T-H but she won’t hear it! Everything is leading in a fucked-up, not-knowing-how-to-fuck direction not to mention the ultimate showdown between the pale mods and a powerful biker gang.

Preceded by the shorts SLEAZY RIDER (1988) and CRACK (1999).

TERMINAL USA
dir. Jon Moritsugu, 1993
57 mins. United States.

THURSDAY, JULY 4 – 7:30 PM
MONDAY, JULY 8 – 7:30 PM
SATURDAY, JULY 20 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 26 – 10 PM  **PHONE CALL WITH JON MORITSUGU AND AMY DAVIS!**
WEDNESDAY, JULY 31 – 7:30 PM (ORIGINAL ROUGH CUT!)
**Q AND A WITH CINEMATOGRAPHER TODD VEROW!**

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Family comes first in this disaster portrait of a comically depraved Japanese-American household on the verge of Armageddon. Wholesome suburban sitcom sensibilities are rigorously contorted through a deliciously deranged cocktail of vices and filthy secrets all wedged under one roof. Any hopes of quality time deteriorate into a feverish shitstorm, before dinner ever has a chance to be served.

While pill-popping mom and homicidal-minded dad are busy reprimanding their nihilist junkie son, Kazumi (Moritsugu), his pregnant, nymphomaniacal cheerleader sister desperately tries to keep a blackmailing sex tape under wraps, and the protractor-wielding prodigy twin brother, Marvin (also Moritsugu), harbors a secret lust for skinheads. As Kazumi casually bleeds out from a gash dealt by debt-collecting drug dealers, his fashion-damaged girlfriend, Eight-Ball (Amy Davis), is of no help, as she may have an extraterrestrial agenda of her own.

Laying to utter waste the dignified image of the “model minority” in doubtlessly the most gnarly soap-opera to ever be funded by PBS and aired on televisions across America, TERMINAL USA gives wings to the term “dysfunctional” and lets it soar.

*Preceded by the shorts BRAINDEAD (1987) and DER ELVIS (1988).

**Brand new VHS re-release by Random Man Editions for sale!

HIPPY PORN
dir. Jon Moritsugu, 1991
97 mins. United States.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 3 – 10 PM
FRIDAY, JULY 12 – 7:30 PM
SUNDAY, JULY 14 – 5 PM
THURSDAY, JULY 18 – 10 PM
MONDAY, JULY 22 – 10 PM

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“Let’s face it, all we’ll be doing for the next 75 minutes is smoking, drinking wine, and complaining about not having anything to do.”

Frenetic disaffection holds reign in HIPPY PORN, Moritsugu’s demented portrait of 90s scum-punk, anti-existentialist youth life. Populated by Warhol Factory rejects who find themselves caught in the wrong time, Moritsugu’s film goes beyond holding nothing sacred, and takes all cultural markers, be they religious, political, or fashionable as equal opportunity material for degenerated profanation.

Starring Moritsugu regular Victor of Aquitaine as L, accompanied by fellow faux-punks M and Mick, HIPPY PORN sees these young college wastoids milling about in deserted lots, cheap-o sets meant to double as underground clubs that remind one of Jack Smith, and their bedrooms. The long stretches of indifferent conversation are broken up and energized by aggressive flashing interludes of disorienting montage that belie the filmmaker’s punk roots.

Soundtracked by an impressive Matador lineup including Superchunk, The Frogs, and Unsane, it’s no surprise that HIPPY PORN ran at the Action Christine Cinema in Paris for over year, where it was certainly appreciated for its indelible brand of American antipathy crossed with a familiar sense of chain-smoking philosophizing.

Preceded by the shorts L’IL DEBBIE SNACKWHORE OF NEW YORK CITY (1987), BRAINDEAD (1987) and CRACK (1999).