Description
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Blending the fatalism of film noir with the wide-open spaces of the Western, Guan Hu’s film won the Un Certain Regard prize at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. In a nearly wordless performance, Eddie Peng plays Lang, a former rock musician and motorcycle stunt performer who returns to his hometown on the edge of the Gobi Desert after a ten-year prison term. While he tries to fit back in, the sins of his past continue to haunt him, and the town’s ambitious clean-up efforts in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics are transforming so completely as to render him an outcast. He finds work on a crew tasked with rounding up the area’s many stray dogs, but finds himself befriending a particularly clever pooch, and the two loners form a bond. Featuring stunning desert vistas and offbeat, dark humor, Black Dog “has the grandly cinematic vision to lend an intimate tale a gloriously epic, allegorical edge” (Jessica Kiang, Variety). Peng became so enamored of his canine costar that he adopted her after the shoot.
(Dir.: Guan Hu, China, 2024, 110 min., DCP, Mandarin with English subtitles)
Accessibility: The public elevator in the West Building (Freer Gallery of Art) is out of service, so your route to the event location may take a few more minutes than usual. Use the accessible entrance at the corner of Independence Avenue and 12th Street SW, and follow the directions when you arrive. Get more accessibility details.
Films are shown in the 300-seat Meyer Auditorium. Preregistration (up to four tickets per person per film) is encouraged but not required. Seating is available on a first–come, first served basis for patrons without tickets.
Image courtesy of The Forge
Cost
Free. Register in advance (recommended)
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Accessibility & Accommodations
Captioning, Wheelchair accessible
