Veteran Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke held a masterclass at the Venice Film Festival, covering a wide swathe of topics, from embracing artificial intelligence opportunities in filmmaking, to launching the Pingyao International Film Festival in China.
Jia is a familiar face at the Biennale, having won the Golden Lion for Best Film in 2006 for Still Life.
When asked about the debates surrounding the use of AI in filmmaking today, Jia said that embracing technology is part of a filmmaker’s journey.
“This year I tried to make a film with AI, given how AI is increasingly being used in movie production,” said Jia.
Jia said that he made a five-munite short film with AI to experiment with the technology.
“AI is a movement. Films that are produced with AI may not have an aesthetic attractiveness but for a creator, it’s like playing chess. In this case, you do it in front of the computer, something you do at home, I call it an indoor activity. On the other hand, films we shoot without AI then become even more like art. Or I see it as an outdoor activity, where you have to go outside and shoot and observe people. It’s like climbing, something you do outside and outdoors, and you can choose whether you like to do something outdoors or indoors,” added Jia.
“You don’t have to be a fan of a technology. There are technologies that can be good, and in every period and time, you can find technologies that are the right ones. You need to know how you want to tell your story. As a filmmaker, I like to react, change and experience new things by using technical opportunities given to me,” said Jia.
Donning sunglasses during the entire masterclass, Jia apologized to audiences, saying that his eyes have become increasingly sensitive to light after staring at screens for most of his working life, and that he needed to protect his eyesight.
Jia acknowledged that being a filmmaker means dealing with waves of intensely busy periods of production, with long, quiet gaps in between. Over the decades, he has learned to embrace these gaps between production — delving into festival programming, experimenting with other audiovisual forms like art documentaries, and embracing youth mentorship and entrepreneurship.
One of his biggest enterprises is founding and running the Pingyao International Film Festival, which is in its ninth edition this year and runs from September 24 to 30.
“I didn’t know at the beginning how long we’ll be able to run the festival for, but this year it’s in its ninth year,” said Jia.
He added that two of the key motivations for organizing the festival is to give a platform to Chinese filmmakers for their work to be picked up for distribution overseas — and to also give international movies a chance to be picked up by Chinese distributors.
He said that nearly half of the international films showcased at Pingyao last year ended up being bought by Chinese distributors, and that he was pleased about this milestone.
He has also been programming a series of silent films (including those featuring Charlie Chaplin), to expose Chinese youths to this period of cinema.
He also recalled a previous project he ran for six years — running a short film screening platform, showcasing over 80 short films — before he closed it down. He labels the project as one of his “failures” in his professional career, but said that life is about giving things your best shot, and encouraged others not to be afraid of failure.
When asked about the rise of mini-series and webseries and how this might impact cinema, Jia said that audiences should embrace these different formats, and not be worried about how they might negatively impact the film industry.
“Mini-series have something to teach us, and the audience also needs them,” said Jia. “In cinema, we must always import new opportunities.”
He pointed out that even cinema’s giants like Jean-Luc Godard was connected to television for a period of time and that Godard was inspired by the medium.
“Cinema is a constant search for new forms,” said Jia, who later concluded with a few comments of reassurance, amid the fast-changing industry and influx of new technologies. “Cinema is irreplaceable.”
