{"id":693,"date":"2013-01-12T20:39:15","date_gmt":"2013-01-12T20:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/corkcineclub.com\/?p=693"},"modified":"2015-08-31T13:36:50","modified_gmt":"2015-08-31T13:36:50","slug":"shun-li-and-the-poet-io-sono-li-thu-30-january-8pm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/corkcineclub.com\/2013\/01\/shun-li-and-the-poet-io-sono-li-thu-30-january-8pm\/","title":{"rendered":"SHUN LI AND THE POET (IO SONO LI), Thu 30 January, 8pm"},"content":{"rendered":"

An unhappy young woman is transported to the gritty hinterlands of Venice by her Chinese gang masters. \u00a0This contemporary snapshot of Italy is a slice-of-life on the meeting of two cultures.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Italy, 2011. 100 minutes.\u00a0\u00a0Language: \u00a0Italian.\u00a0 Cert: Club. \u00a0Director:\u00a0 Io sono Li. \u00a0Starring: \u00a0Zhao Tao, Rade Serbedzija, Marco Paolini<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/em><\/p>\n

Many recent European films have chronicled the social and personal consequences of the recent wave of immigration to Europe, but few with the delicacy and insight of Andre Segre\u2019s lovely film. Brought to Italy by a \u201cbroker\u201d who she\u2019s slowly paying off while saving money to bring across her son, Shun Li is sent from her factory job to a bar in Chioggia, a small town in the Veneto lagoon. There she strikes up a friendship with Bepi, a fisherman nicknamed \u201cthe Poet,\u201d himself a representative of an earlier immigration to Italy from Eastern Europe. The two come to share a special understanding, and their relationship transforms them both.<\/p>\n

Segre effectively draws us into this \u201cimmigrant world,\u201d not simply to expose its unfairness but to reveal the ways in which immigrants create their own special support systems. An unusual and compelling first feature deservedly selected for the Director\u2019s Fortnight section of the Venice Film Festival, SHUN LI AND THE POET has a terrific central performance by Zhao Tao, Jia Zhang-ke\u2019s muse in films like Platform and The World. The film takes the essence of an all-too-real situation (the recent influx of Chinese immigrants into the environs of Venice) that is also simultaneously a new filmic look at aspects of Venetian life, refreshingly naturalistic and free of picture postcard tourism. \u2013 San Diego Italian Film Festival<\/p>\n

Click here to read The Guardian review. \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to read The New York Times review.<\/a><\/p>\n