Pitt Film Festival Celebrates Chinese New Year

PITTSBURGH—In celebration of the Chinese Lunar New Year, Pitt will present a free public film festival Feb. 15-17 that highlights the environmental concerns of various Chinese ethnic cultures.

The festival will screen what has lately has been called Chinese "ecocinema," feature-length films that expose ecological problems.

The first event is a lecture by Guobin Yang, associate professor in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures at Barnard College, at 4 p.m. Feb. 15 in 4130 Posvar Hall, 230 S. Bouquet St. Yang's lecture, "The Rise of Environmentalism in China," examines whether China is doing enough environmentally to keep in step with its booming economy and rapid urban consumption.

Yang's lecture will be followed by a reception at 5:45 p.m. and a screening of clips from several Chinese documentaries, in the Alumni Hall Auditorium, 4227 Fifth Ave, where all films will be shown. The remaining festival schedule is as follows:

• "When Ruoma Was Seventeen" (Zhang Jiarui, 2002), 8:15 p.m. Feb. 15;

• "Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles" (Yimou Zhang, 2005), 7:15 p.m. Feb. 16; and

• "Suzhou River" (Ye Lou, 2000), 7:15 p.m. Feb. 17.

The festival is sponsored by Pitt's Asian Studies Center in the University Center for International Studies, the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, the Department of Sociology, and the Film Studies Program. For additional information, contact Katy Carlitz at 412-648-7370 or xinmin@pitt.edu

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01/11/07/scl