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.

The Crack (缝)
Li Wake, China, 2000, 101 min.
In Chinese with English subtitles.

Long circulated only through underground screenings before its restoration by the Chinese Independent Film Archive, Li Wake’s The Crack stands as one of the most significant rediscoveries of Chinese independent cinema. Drawing on his own experiences as a performance artist and contemporary artist, this semi-autobiographical drama moves between 1966 and 1989, tracing the psychological afterlives of two defining eras of modern Chinese history. Rejecting conventional realism in favor of a oneiric, expressionist visual language, Li constructs a world where ritual, performance, erotic obsession, and historical memory collapse into one another. Arriving near the culmination of the first generation of Chinese independent filmmaking, The Crack remains one of its boldest and most singular achievements. —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.