Latest news with #Arsin
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Festival Favorite Bi Gan Mentored the Dreamy Berlin Coming-of-Age Premiere ‘The Botanist' to Bloom: Watch the Teaser
One of IndieWire's favorite films of 2019 was 'Long Day's Journey Into Night,' Chinese director Bi Gan's genre-bending epic that used 3D and more formally twisting conceits to tell a story of romantic longing and a tryst that leads to a disappearance. While between films, Bi, who is rumored to have his much-anticipated third feature 'Resurrection' premiere at Cannes this year, ended up mentoring a young budding director for their own woozily dreamy portrait, 'The Botanist.' Jing Yi's new film premieres at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival in the Generation Kplus section, and IndieWire shares an exclusive first look below. Here's the synopsis, per the Berlinale's official website: 'In a village in a remote valley on the northern border of Xinjiang, China, a lonely Kazakh boy named Arsin nurses fading memories of his family. He finds solace in the company of plants. The arrival of Meiyu, a Han Chinese girl, is like the discovery of a plant he has never seen before, bringing him comfort and a strange sense of wonder. Together, they grow like two distinct species, rooted in a shared corner of the world, imagining the valley as an endless ocean. But one day, Arsin learns that Meiyu will be moving to Shanghai, which is 4,792 kilometres away – a distance he struggles to comprehend. She is headed to a city where the ocean actually exists. Arsin is left alone to grapple with the quiet shifts in their small, fragile world.' More from IndieWire 'No Other Land' Is Nominated for an Oscar, but in Masafer Yatta, We're Still Being Erased - Opinion How the Editing of 'Conclave' Gives Its Cardinal All the Clues Jing Yi, born in 1994 and raised in Xinjiang, is a graduate of the Beijing Film Academy. His debut feature film 'The Botanist' was selected as an official project at the Asian Project Market 2023, where it won the New Horse Award. The film also received post-production funding from the Doha Film Institute Grants Programme 2024 Spring session. 'The Botanist' premieres on Saturday, February 15. Here's the teaser. Magnify is handling worldwide sales rights. Best of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie The 55 Best LGBTQ Movies and TV Shows Streaming on Netflix Right Now
Yahoo
20-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Berlin Hidden Gem: China's Jing Yi Taps Memories of Xinjiang for Enigmatic Feature Debut ‘The Botanist'
First-time Chinese director Jing Yi can pinpoint the precise moment that led him to become a filmmaker. The 31-year-old was born and raised in a tiny village in the dry grasslands of China's remote northeastern Xinjiang region, near the border with Khazakstan. Coming of age in one of China's few multicultural communities far from the bustle of the country's gleaming modern metropolises — the region is home to Han Chinese, Kazakhs, Uyghurs and numerous other ethnic groups — Yi's early encounters with cinema were limited to the sanitized, mainstream fare broadcast on Chinese state TV. As he was nearing the end of high school, though, a friend lent him a hard drive filled with downloaded movies, a cache packed with works from China's masters — Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, Wong Kar-wai and Hong Kong's Johnnie To — but also foreign names that were completely unrecognizable to him: Emir Kusturica, Abbas Kiarostami, Terrence Malick, Satyajit Ray and others. More from The Hollywood Reporter BBC Revenge Thriller Series 'Reunion,' Set in the Deaf Community, Gets First-Look Pictures Blackpink's Jisoo to Star in Netflix K-Drama Series 'Boyfriend on Demand' 'Kontinental '25' Review: Romanian Auteur Radu Jude Delivers Another Caustic Modern Morality Tale 'A complete shock that changed how I see the world,' Yi says of the bewildering but exhilarating experience of diving into his friend's vault of cinema classics. 'I had no idea movies could be like this.' Yi soon left his village for university studies in Beijing. But like so many from China's hinterlands who are transposed to the country's fast-changing megalopolises, he grew homesick and longed for the quieter rhythms of his village and the vast natural vistas of Xinjiang. Wanting to express these feelings, he began experimenting with cameras and making DIY short films. His obsession with cinema grew, and he eventually pursued graduate studies at China's prestigious Beijing Film Academy. Li's debut feature, The Botanist, premiering in the Berlin Film Festival's Generation Kplus section this week, is perhaps exactly what one would hope for from a cinematic wunderkind of his unique background. An enigmatic and arresting work, shot through with beautiful imagery of Xinjiang's grassy vastness, the film defies easy summary. It tells the story of Arsin, a lonely Kazakh boy who takes solace in plants and the traditional folk beliefs he learned from an uncle who has mysteriously gone missing. Arsin's world is rattled by the arrival of Meiyu, a Han Chinese girl whose perky presence brings him comfort, companionship and a strange sense of wonder. Together, they explore the landscape and share unspoken intimacies, imagining their valley as an endless ocean. But one day, Arsin learns that Meiyu will be moving away to attend boarding school in Shanghai; and just like that, he's left alone again to grapple with the modern changes that are gradually encroaching on his village's fragile world. During his time at the Beijing Film Academy, Yi won the support of Chinese art house star Bi Gan, whose Tarkovsky-esque feature Long Day's Journey Into Night was a critical sensation at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018. Bi's influence — along with Malick, Kiarostami and Ray's — is evident in subtle ways throughout The Botanist. After seeing and admiring some of Yi's shorts, Bi became something of a mentor to the young director, providing comments on The Botanist's script and rough cut. Today, Bi is effusive in his praise for Li's debut, summing it up as both 'simple and profound.' He explains: 'Arsin and Meiyu are not just characters but coordinates of expression, their faces carrying both memory and distance. Yet, Li's true protagonist is something greater: the layered distances of Xinjiang. His work subtly unfolds the temporal gap between tradition and modernity, the spatial divide between inland and coast, and the dreamlike spiritual space between reality and illusion.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter The Best Anti-Fascist Films of All Time Dinosaurs, Zombies and More 'Wicked': The Most Anticipated Movies of 2025 From 'A Complete Unknown' to 'Selena' to 'Ray': 33 Notable Music Biopics
Yahoo
17-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The Botanist' Review: A Lonely Boy's Dreamlike Coming-of-Age Journey Features Strong Images and Trite Ideas
Paul Simon would likely describe Arsin (Yesl Jahseleh), the young Kazakh boy at the center of Jing Yi's feature debut 'The Botanist,' as the only living boy in Xinjiang. Lonely and introspective, Arsin spends most of his time wandering around his remote village amongst its flora. When he's not collecting plant samples for his personal collection, he looks after his grandmother and helps his disgraced older brother (Jalen Nurdaolet) herd sheep in the hills. Most of the time, however, Arsin lives in a rich interior world where his deep connection to nature and memories of departed family, especially his beloved missing uncle, are inextricably bound. 'The Botanist' embraces nomadic Kazakh beliefs about dead souls continuing to live within the natural world, one of the film's many liminalities. Arsin's frequent bouts of sleepwalking keep him in a perpetual dreamlike state. He and his family live in a border village within an autonomous region of China; people regularly travel back and forth to neighboring countries, like Kazakhstan, as well as other Chinese provinces. The village itself is stuck in a tenuous space between its rural roots and the modern world. Arsin's older brother's cell phone feels like a minor technological disruption when juxtaposed against the placid surroundings, but ominous radio transmissions that hint towards natural gas extraction coming to the region prophesies irreparable change. More from IndieWire 4 Oscar-Nominated Production Designers Analyze Pivotal Scenes from Their Films 'The White Lotus' Returns with Top-Tier Performances: Episode 1 Review Jing situates 'The Botanist' in a woozy allegorical context where people and plants are indistinguishable from one another. Arsin not only feels connected to his family in nature, but he also likens Meiyu (Ren Zihan), a local Chinese girl whom he befriends, to a rare plant as well. Visually speaking, Jing takes an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to collapsing the film's human characters and its vast landscape into a single fluid entity. Sometimes he not-so-subtly suggests it with shots of Arsin tenderly running his hands through a flowing river. Other times, he deploys surreal folkloric imagery, like when Arsin speaks to his lost uncle in the form of a talking horse, which can't help but recall television's famed Mister Ed. An impassioned sincerity courses through 'The Botanist' that's as much a feature as it is a liability. Jing and cinematographer Vanon Li might rely on the occasional derivative shot, but they still have an obvious capacity for crafting strong images. They mostly manage to imbue Xinjiang's vibrant plant life with the necessary visual awe, but they also bring that same generous eye to the rest of village, especially its serene, sparse tracts of land. (A wide shot of two sheep herds colliding in a desert basin casually stuns with its docu-style simplicity.) Recurring slow pans across a forest may risk repetition, but Jing and Vanon break up the rhythm with welcome intrusions, like intimate handheld depictions of children at play and an ethereal close-up shot of a finger swiping through photos on a phone. Jing's facility with young, non-professional actors also helps draws out an understated performance from Yesl, who rises to the challenge of commanding the frame through limited actions like walking and staring pensively. But while Yesl and Ren exhibit believable chemistry, and both are capable of projecting melancholy at key moments, Arsin and Meiyu's romantically-charged friendship feels too thin to make up the film's (admittedly loose) narrative backbone. Oblique glances shared between two people can only communicate so much, or so little, before they become a creative crutch. Moreover, Jing evades the fact of Arsin and Meiyu's different ethnicities — Kazakh vs. Han Chinese — by filtering their relationship through a vaguely defined botanical metaphor. (Different floral species can coexist in harmony, or something.) It's acceptable for 'The Botanist' to address political realities through suggestion, but it sometimes seems like the characters' different cultural backgrounds are hardly a concern at all, which slightly negates the supposed unlikelihood of their connection. An insistently weighty voiceover recurs throughout 'The Botanist,' delivering both exposition and expressions of yearning from Arsin's perspective. Not only does the clumsy narration feature the film's weakest writing, but it also lays bare some shallow thematic concepts. 'The Botanist' would not be the first film to contend that love and spiritual connection can withstand transformation or transcend time, but it takes more than an earnest presentation to ensure those ideas don't seem trite, even when they're delivered from the voice of a child. As much as 'The Botanist' chronicles Arsin's internal coming of age, it's his older brother that occasionally feels like the richer subject. Having fled the big city in the aftermath of a violent incident, he now spends his free time calling an old girlfriend and getting drunk while generally neglecting his shepherding duties. A quintessential Chinese young adult, the brother feels disconnected from the stillness of rural life and the speed of the city, yet he still keeps a foot in both worlds just to have options. Arsin initially sympathizes with his brother's existential struggle from afar, but when he abruptly decides to return to the city, the young boy seems to suddenly understands his aimlessness. It's a testament to Jing's confidence as a young filmmaker that he essentially sidelines an emotionally potent narrative strand in favor of personal exploration. Jing was born and raised in Xinjiang and he clearly imbues 'The Botanist' with his own past. (Both Yesl and Ren are also from Xinjiang, which contributes to the film's general lived-in feeling.) His connection to the region certainly informs the trancelike ecological imagery that underpins Arsin's psycho-spiritual journey. Humanity's tender, fraught relationship with the natural world has a storied history on film, but in 'The Botanist,' it can sometimes feel like an unearned shortcut to grazing the sublime. 'The Botanist' premiered at the 2025 Berlin International Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution. Want to stay up to date on IndieWire's film and critical thoughts? to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings — all only available to subscribers. Best of IndieWire The 25 Best Alfred Hitchcock Movies, Ranked Every IndieWire TV Review from 2020, Ranked by Grade from Best to Worst
