Got a few ounces of summer left, and though the silver screen charms all year 'round, there's something extra magical about taking in a flick or two when the weather's hot. Here are some late summer film events popping up over the next few weeks: The big one is the 11th Annual Beijing Independent Film Festival. Bit of a strange beast, this one. It gets shut down by the authorities pretty much every year, because independent film isn't really legal in China. Last year, Time Out Beijing sent a correspondent who reported on the shutdown, which led T.O.'s film editor to proclaim "The death of independent cinema in China". That's a pretty heavy-handed, Western-journalistic proclamation, to be sure. Something like "The Many Births, Deaths, and Rebirths of Chinese Independent Cinema Amidst the Karmic Cycle of Arbitrary Government Attitudes Toward Individual Filmmakers Continue Apace" would be more accurate, but would probably exceed some print quota. Anyway, avant-garde art critic and curator Li Xianting, the founder, patron saint, and host of the BJ Independent Film Fest via his eponymous Film Fund, is right back at it in 2014. Not really pulling any punches, either: straight up showing a film called Unveil the Truth II - State Apparatus next Tuesday. The cajones on this guy. click for larger image So yeah, this thing will probably get shut down again. But above is the pipe-dream schedule, which you can also skim through in our listing. If all goes according to plan, the fest will kick off this Saturday, August 23, and continue daily through Sunday, August 31. Screenings will take place in two theater rooms within Li Xianting's Film Fund, with Theater A mostly dedicated to feature-length films and Theater B hosting morning film forums and afternoon screenings of shorts. Most of the screenings in each space are followed up by a Q&A with the director: this really is the annual meeting for independent filmmakers in China. I'm out of my depth with this stuff so I can't really recommend specific films. I can tell you that all of them were made between now and the time last year's (aborted) BJIFF wrapped. Queer filmmaker Fan Popo, who recently made it into the world-renowned San Fran LGBT film festival Frameline, has a new one in this lot called The VaChina Monologues, that should be cool. Crazy motherfucker Wu Haohao has an entry as well, if you're into the whole Schadenfreude trip. There's one called The Chaotic Space of Nihility and Dissolving, Melting and Shattering Phenomenon of Time that's just over 4 minutes long, that sounds like a hoot. Again, you can check the entire schedule here. PRO TIP: According to a friend of mine who's gone to this thing the last few years, even when the screenings get cancelled, they end up re-booting in people's houses or studios in the area. If you're not connected to any of the filmmakers, just show up with a carton of Derby smokes and some cold beers and follow people who look like they know where they're going after the hammer drops. ANOTHER PRO TIP: The guys with crew cuts and khaki shorts who look like they're desperately trying to fit in are UC cops, dude. *** A bit closer to home for most of us (BJIFF goes down in Songzhuang, otherwise known as "almost Hebei"): Zajia Lab has a few solid film and video art events coming up as well. On Friday, they kick off a new initiative called Fast Forward, in collaboration with "Afro contemporary art" mag AFRIKADAA. Fast Forward is a video art exhibition/screening series drawing attention to the cultural and economic ties between Africa and Asia, China in particular: While contemporary art made by African artists or of African descent or heritage is booming globally, we wanted to confront and dialogue with today’s most prominent economic power, which also happens to be Africa’s first economic partner. As art lovers, we want to challenge the fact that these relations should remain focused on politics, economy and philanthropy. That runs from Friday, August 22-Tuesday, August 26; more info in the listing. The very next day, Zajia continues its ongoing collaboration with The Memory Project, a documentary initiative founded by Caochangdi Workstation aiming to reconstruct repressed cultural memories from the three-year famine following the Great Leap Forward (1959-1961). Since 2010, the "folk memory project" has enlisted 21 participants, ranging from teenage film students to sexagenarians who'd never before touched a camera. On Wednesday, August 27, Zajia hosts one of The Memory Project's younger participants, Wang Haian, who was born in 1988 and graduated from Tianjin Fine Arts Academy in 2012. His first entry to the Memory Project was Attack Zhanggao Village, which he followed up with last year's Believing in Zhanggao Village: "In 2013, I went back to my village again, and tried again to erect a monument for the people who died in the 1959-1961 famine. And I encountered the same opposition. I came into the village church and fell into the eddy of religion. I was determined to do more specific things for the villagers, so I taught the children to draw and helped the solitary old people…" Catch that one on Wednesday night at Zajia Lab. *** A few odds and ends: Culture Yard has been on the low-key movie night scene for a while now, and they've enlisted Beijing-based author / film critic / Concrete Flux crew member Aaron Fox-Lerner to do a duo of screenings in September. The loose theme is "Mainland crime films" and the schedule is thus: Sunday, September 14: Blind Shaft 盲井 (2003, dir. Yang Li): "Two Chinese coal miners have hit upon the perfect scam: murder one of their fellow mine workers, make the death look like an accident, and extort money from the boss to keep the incident hushed up. For their latest 'mark,' they choose a naive teenager from a small village, and as they prepare to carry out their newest plan, things start to get complicated..." Sunday, September 21: Crazy Stone 疯狂的石头 (2006, dir. Ning Hao): "Three thieves try to steal a valuable jade that is tightly guarded by a security chief. But the security guards are not the only obstacle these thieves are facing. An extremely unlucky internationally known master thief is also trying to get a hand on this piece of precious jade. What would be the final destination of this piece of crazy stone?" Screenings are 50rmb a pop and followed by an English discussion of the films. *** Last, definitely least: SmartBeijing Movie Mondays at Dada! I showed Honey, I Shrunk the Kids the other night and it killed. Y'all are sleeping on this I swear. Next Monday at Dada we're showing National Lampoon's Vacation, then shit starts to get really real with September's Movie Monday theme: POST-HUMAN SCARJO.... Seriously, Scarlett Johansson's on fire! Seems like only yesterday she was gunning for the 21st-century Marilyn Monroe mantle, but fast forward to 2014 and I can't even remember the last time she portrayed a human, nevertheless a babe! For the month of September, SmartBeijing serves up a retrospective of the Scarj's best post-human, meta-human, trans-human, and super-human roles, because the singularity is upon us: Monday, September 1: Ghost World (dir. Terry Zwigoff, 2001) "With only the plan of moving in together after high school, two unusually devious friends seek direction in life. As a mere gag, they respond to a man's newspaper ad for a date, only to find it will greatly complicate their lives." OK, maybe this one's a stretch, Johansson kind of plays a straight-up normal human teen in this one. But, she does display the uber-human abilities of looking at Steve Buscemi dead in the eyes and completely absorbing Thora Birch's career. "Who," you ask? Exactly! Good flick, this one. Monday, September 8: The Island (dir. Michael Bay, 2005) "A man goes on the run after he discovers that he is actually a 'harvestable being,' and is being kept as a source of replacement parts, along with others, in a Utopian facility." One of those others is ScarJo, naturally. But what is she? Like a real human or a test tube kind of thing or something? I don't know, I've never seen this movie. In fact it was news to me that Michael Bay didn't just appear on this planet fully formed via a wormhole from a shittier dimension with a script for Transformers I: The First One in hand circa 2007. Metacritic rating for this one is a solid 50/100 so come on out and flip the coin with us. Monday, September 15: Under the Skin (dir. Jonathan Glazer, 2014) "A mysterious woman seduces lonely men in the evening hours in Scotland. Events lead her to begin a process of self-discovery." Well that description doesn't even touch the tip of the iceberg where this one's concerned. You will not sleep well after watching this. Aesthetically stunning, conceptually one of the creepiest fucking things ever put to celluloid. Language is Glaswegian with English subtitles (jokes). Monday, September 22: Captain America: The Winter Soldier (dir. Anthony & Joe Russo, 2014) Gotta tone it down a bit after that last one. "Steve Rogers struggles to embrace his role in the modern world and battles a new threat from old history: the Soviet agent known as the Winter Soldier." S-CAR-JO plays Marvel bad-girl-gone-good, Black Widow. According to Wikipedia, her extra-human attributes are thus: "The Black Widow is a world class athlete, gymnast, acrobat, aerialist capable of numerous complex maneuvers and feats, expert martial artist... marksman, and weapons specialist as well as having extensive espionage training. She is also an accomplished ballerina." Rad! Monday, September 29: Lucy (dir. Luc Besson, 2014) "A woman, accidentally caught in a dark deal, turns the tables on her captors and transforms into a merciless warrior evolved beyond human logic." Oh Jesus. I surrender. Tiny Mix Tapes describes Lucy as "a film that’s incredibly nice to look at, but impossible to make any real sense of," which describes pretty much every film on this list, come to think of it. This one just came out, and while I have maximum faith in the China-Hollywood piracy nexus, if I can't get my grubby mitts on a copy of this in time I'll just show Her again because it's basically the same conceit as far as Ms. Jo's role is concerned. *** All of the SmBJ Monday night screenings are free, at Dada, starting around 9pm. See ya at the movies!