Bamboo Shoots (dir. Jian Yi)
Jian Yi, whose documentary Super, Girls! was one of the first films in the dGenerate catalog, is screening his narrative debut feature Bamboo Shoots at The Projection Booth in Toronto now until Thursday September 1. Winner of Best Feature Film at the Montreal World Cinema Festival, the release has garnered substantial press. Some excerpts:
A hastily packed prophylactic is this gentle Chinese satire, about a small-town peasant trying to spare his community embarrassment: the offending condom was stuck in a box of bamboo shoots being sent as a gift to town officials… The slow, deliberate style works well for the material. – Metro “The best thing that could happen when someone misplaces a condom (aside from pregnancy?) is this kind of serious but light, absurd but naturalistic story.” – The National Post
“A dry and surprisingly sharp satire about people finding ways to scrabble along, from the city to the country, in the bizarre hybrid state/free-market that now exists in China.” – The Toronto Sun The small observational moments and fleeting characters can be funny in isolation, but taken as a whole the film feels soul-crushingly bleak, the mark of effective satire.” – Now Toronto