Chinese Artists on the Edge brings together five landmark films that reveal the fertile exchange between contemporary art and Chinese cinema from the late 1980s through the turn of the twenty-first century.

Reverie on Old Shanghai (海上旧梦)
Chen Yifei, China, 1993, 78 min.
In Chinese with English subtitles.

Reverie on Old Shanghai is the cinematic expression of the nostalgic visual language that made Chen Yifei one of the defining artists of China’s reform era. Dispensing with conventional narrative, the film unfolds through a succession of exquisitely composed set-pieces inspired by the imagined Shanghai of the 1930s. With Chen himself drifting silently through these visions, the film transforms the artist’s lifelong fascination with memory, elegance, and cultural history into a haunting meditation on the beauty—and impermanence—of the past. Recently restored in 4K for a rare retrospective screening in Shanghai alongside a major exhibition of Chen’s work, the film deserves rediscovery by both admirers of his paintings and lovers of ethereal cinema.
—Sam C. Mac

A limited amount of complimentary tickets will be available to NYC college students with ID at the box office on the day of the screening.