Date: Dec. 6, 2016

To: All media for immediate release

Re: Screenings of “Old Stone”

From: The Bijou Film Center

In its screening room at 304 E. Broad St. the Bijou Film Center will present a new thriller, “Old Stone,” Dec. 15 through Dec. 18.

Admission: $9. No advance tickets.

Thursday show time: 7 p.m.

Friday show times: 7 p.m., 9 p.m.

Saturday show times: 3 p.m., 5 p.m., 7 p.m., 9 p.m.

Sunday show times: 3 p.m., 5 p.m.

“Old Stone”(2016): Color. 80 minutes. Language: Mandarin with English subtitles. Directed by Johnny Ma. Cast: Gang Chen, Nai An, Hongwei Wang, Zebin Zhang.

Note:A drunk gets into a cab and causes it to hit a motorcyclist. In Johnny Ma’s debut feature (he also wrote the screenplay) that road accident plunges the taxi driver into a daunting Kafkaesque nightmare, where no good deed goes unpunished. When compassion is too expensive life can be cheap. This stylish thriller begins as a gritty social realist drama, before swerving into a blood-drenched noir.

Review: “Although the movie advances an obvious critique of contemporary China, a bureaucratic labyrinth from which there seems to be no escape, its title also suggests Albert Camus’ essay ‘The Myth of Sisyphus.’ For Camus, Sisyphus is ‘the absurd hero,’ condemned to search for meaning – to keep pushing uphill – in the total absence of meaning. ‘A face that toils so close to stones,’ Camus writes, ‘is already stone itself!’” – Manohla Dargis, N.Y. Times.

The trailer is here.

Beer, wine and soft drinks will be for sale.
More Background: For more information pertaining to the Bijou Film Center please go to The Bijou’s website, The Bijou’s Facebook page and its Bijou Backlight blogzine.

Contacts:

James Parrish: Email: jtparrish@bijoufilmcenter.org. Phone: (804) 564-3224.

Terry Rea: Email: ftrea9@gmail.com. Phone: (804) 938-7997.