Chinese film about one-child policy shines

Agnes Varda, the Belgian-born grande dame of French cinema, made her latest film Agnes by Varda to help bid farewell to her viewers, but the 90-year-old doesn’t rule out making more movies.

Speaking hours before being awarded the Berlin Film Festival’s Berlinale Camera award for lifetime achievement, Varda dismissed attempts to lionise her.

“I’m not a legend, I’m still alive,” she exclaimed after the moderator at a press conference introduced the “legendary” figure, seen as a founder of the French New Wave, one of the most influential movements in cinema history.

Her latest film shows her discussing her oeuvre before live audiences, with extracts from earlier films like the feminist classic Cleo from 5 to 7 spliced in. In between, she interviews the actors and cinematographers she collaborated with.

“I’m very interested in other people,” she said, “and in the film you saw a lot of people who have been so important to me... I have to prepare myself to say goodbye and go away.” Actor Du Jiang, director, screenwriter and producer Wang Xiaoshuai, actress Qi Xi and actor and singer Wang Yuan.

A moving Chinese epic looking at the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, the one-child policy and forced abortion made it past censors to premiere at the Berlin film festival despite a widening crackdown.

Di jiu tian chang (So Long, My Son) by Wang Xiaoshuai, clocking in at more than three hours, is a sweeping allegorical drama about two families whose fates become intricately intertwined

across 30 years of dramatic change in their country.

“After the Cultural Revolution ended, there was that saying ‘look forward and don’t think about the past’. That was at the time about forgetting about it all and getting on with the economy and freeing yourself from ideology,” Wang said.

“Now we need to take a fresh look at that phrase. We need to keep looking ahead.”