Slow Cinema video essay & Kaili Blues

What Is Duration? Understanding Slow Cinema Through KAILI BLUES

A video bricolage-essay by Ryan Swen (YouTube 29 May 2018) 9'15"

A mix between a straightforward video essay and a more abstract collage, this video briefly delves into the loose movement known as slow cinema, using the 2015 Chinese film KAILI BLUES, directed by Bi Gan, as a focusing lens. Equal emphasis is given to analysis and creation of a mood befitting the subject matter.

Source :

• "Slow cinema" (ToBeContd) Zachary Lewis, Michael Sicinski (2014) [offline:accessible on Web Archive]
• "Slow Wars" (n+1) Moira Weigel (spring 2016)
• n+1 podcast 29 : "Slow Wars" with Moira Weigel (10 September 2016) 33'

'Kaili Blues' Q&A | Bi Gan | New Directors/New Films 2016 (YouTube 33')

Director Bi Gan discussed his film 'Kaili Blues' after its screening at New Directors/New Films 2016, co-presented by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art. A multiple prizewinner at the Locarno Film Festival and one of the most audacious and innovative debuts of recent years, Bi Gan’s endlessly surprising shape-shifter comes to assume the uncanny quality of a waking dream as it poetically and mysteriously interweaves the past, present, and future. Chen Sheng, a country doctor in the Guizhou province who has served time in prison, is concerned for the well-being of his nephew, Weiwei, whom he believes his thug brother Crazy Face intends to sell. Weiwei soon vanishes, and Chen sets out to find him, embarking on a mystical quest that takes him to the riverside city of Kaili and the town of Dang Mai. Through a remarkable arsenal of stylistic techniques, the film develops into a one-of-a-kind road movie, at once magical and materialist, traversing both space and time. A Grasshopper Film release.