FILM FESTIVAL-VENICE/BEHEMOTH Coal mine in Venice film is like Dante's hell, director says

Record ID: 141149

  • Title: FILM FESTIVAL-VENICE/BEHEMOTH Coal mine in Venice film is like Dante's hell, director says
  • Date: 11th September 2015
  • Summary: VENICE, ITALY (SEPTEMBER 11, 2015) (REUTERS) ****WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** ZHAO AND PRODUCERS ARRIVING ON RED CARPET CAMERAMAN VARIOUS OF ZHAO POSING FOR PHOTOS FANS VARIOUS OF ZHAO POSING FOR PHOTOS PHOTOGRAPHERS / ZHAO WALKING ON RED CARPET
  • Embargoed: 26th September 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA1OSXW85T728PRJ10FWPOI4OLW
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Chinese filmmaker Zhao Liang said on Friday (September 11) the Inner Mongolian coal mine depicted in his film "Beixi Moshuo" (Behemoth) is a vision of hell out of Dante's "Divine Comedy", and hopes viewers everywhere will realise ravaging the environment must stop.
    The film, competing for the main prize at the Venice Film Festival, is an extraordinary look at what resembles a human anthill of ceaseless, manual work by miners at a sprawling complex in China's northern Inner Mongolia autonomous region.
    "I hope that many people will get to see this film. My biggest hope is to convey the message that no matter where you are and what your living conditions are and where you actually live, people should be more aware of these issues and maybe lower their expectations and their desires towards life and not waste that many resources and supplies, to live more simply," Zhao told Reuters in an interview.
    "I hope people get to reflect about their lives and how our lifestyles affect everything around us, including the environment," he added.
    Working around-the clock under floodlights, the mines and its workers have displaced the local herdsmen, whose grasslands have disappeared. The film shows miners staggering under their workload, and also glimpses of them in hospitals, being treated for black-lung disease brought on by breathing coal dust.
    The director had to overcome several challenges to shoot the film.
    "We had big difficulties to get this film made. The main reason was that the media and cameras are not allowed to enter these mines. The mine managers perfectly know that they are doing something that is not good, something that damages the environment, so they wouldn't let us in as a film crew because they feared repercussions. The strategy we used was to gain access as some kind of journalists and we chose very carefully which sites to film at and chose the angles very carefully for each specific scene. We also had some friends who helped us get access to the dwellings of some of the workers to witness how they live," he said.
    Zhao, a veteran documentary maker whose films often look at dysfunctional aspects of Chinese society, said he had not needed the permission of the Chinese authorities to make the film, because it is an independent production with French support, but he would need a permission to show it in China.
    At the press conference he noted only one Chinese journalist was present, reflecting what, he said, might possibly be official pressure on them not to attend.
    "But I think there must be some sort of misunderstanding anyway because nobody has ever seen this movie and so it's wrong for them to decide that it is not desirable for it to be screened. They should see it first, then decide it is not appropriate, if at all," Zhao, whose remarks were translated from Chinese into English by the festival, said.
    He said the notion that his images from the coal mine might be framed as a modern-day version of the 14th-century Florentine poet Dante Alighieri's descent into hell had been suggested to him by the film's French backers, the National Audiovisual Institute (INA) and ARTE France.
    According to Zhao, the film relates to Dante's 'Divine Comedy by pure chance, as the producers suggested he reads the book after seeing the footage from the mines.
    "What Dante wrote in the early 14th century corresponds to what we experience here in our days, and this was how this connection with the 'Divine Comedy' by Dante was developed and became part of my film," he said.
    "Behemoth" is one of 21 films competing for the coveted Golden Lion award at the 72nd Venice Film Festival which ends on Saturday (September 12).
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