China Film Festival

By Mary Clare Fleury

AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center

8633 Colesville Rd.
Silver Spring/Takoma Park, MD 20910
Phone: 301.495.6700

Nearby Metro Stops:

Silver Spring

Wheelchair Accessible:

Yes

Kid Friendly:

Yes

Website:

http://www.afi.com/silver/new/

China is the world’s largest producer of feature films behind America and India. May 3 to 7, the China Film Festival showcases seven new films, including Washington and American premieres, festival winners, and box-office hits.

The Banquet, a loose adaptation of Hamlet set in tenth-century China, opens the festival. In Mandarin with English subtitles, the movie chronicles conflicting interests within the Chinese court.

Another highlight: Johnny To’s Exiled, a stylized thriller following a group of hit men in Macau.

Silent-film actor and director Buster Keaton (1895–1966) gets a retrospective May 6 to June 24. Born Joseph Francis Keaton Jr. to a vaudeville family, Buster earned his nickname from Harry Houdini, who saw him take a nasty fall down a flight of stairs unharmed. A veteran carnival performer when he went into film in 1917, Keaton was famous for maintaining a deadpan expression during physical-comedy scenes. May highlights include 1923’s Our Hospitality, which pokes fun at two feuding Southern families; 1924’s The Navigator, with Keaton as a rich man stranded at sea; and 1927’s The General, set during the Civil War. Live music accompanies the screenings.

AFI commemorates the 100th anniversary of John Wayne’s birth with a retrospective beginning May 12. In May, you can catch him in a handful of Westerns including 1930’s The Big Trail, 1939’s Stagecoach, and 1950’s Rio Grande.