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Jia Zhangke preps road movie Mamma Dunhuang for early winter shoot

Jonah VillalbaPublished 7d ago2 min readBased on 2 sources
Jia Zhangke preps road movie Mamma Dunhuang for early winter shoot
Photo by Georges Biard / CC BY-SA 4.0

Jia Zhangke will move straight onto location scouting and production design for his next film, the road movie Mamma Dunhuang, once his Pingyao festival wraps.

The Chinese director spoke during the 10th Pingyao Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon International Film Festival, which he founded and which closes on Sept. 30, according to Variety. After that, his focus shifts to the new shoot.

Mamma Dunhuang follows a woman who drives from Dunhuang, in western China, to the sea on the country's eastern coastline. It is set to shoot in early winter.

Zhao Tao will star. Her character is a homebound woman who uses artificial intelligence to help her make the journey.

Jia said AI appears only inside the story. He will not use AI to make the film itself, Variety reported.

That distinction matters in Pingyao this year. Jia said none of the 51 films in the festival's official programme were made with AI. For an earlier edition, the festival's fifth, Pingyao partnered with visual artist Xu Bing on AI-IF, a project that invited audiences to make films using AI tools.

What makes this stand out is the pairing of an old-fashioned road trip with a very current tool. The journey is physical, city to coast. The helper is digital.

For fans, this means another lead role for Zhao Tao, Jia's long-time collaborator. She recently won the David di Donatello Award for best actress for Shun Li and the Poet.

Behind the camera, Jia is reteaming with MK2 Films, the French production and sales company that helps finance films and sells screening rights to distributors around the world, according to Variety. Sales companies of this kind often come aboard early and then place a film with local distributors territory by territory.

Pingyao itself continues to draw a crowd. Its online ticketing system logged more than 70 million visits this year. The festival takes place in Pingyao ancient city, which is protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Early winter now looks busy. Scouting first, then cameras.

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