Mr. Zhang Believes

Qiu Jiongjiong

Release year: 2015

Run time: 350 mins

Film type: Fiction

MR. ZHANG BELIEVES recounts 30 years of China’s 20th-century history through the story of Mr. Zhang Xianchi and the interacting forms of theatrical fiction and autobiography. Born in a nationalist Kuomintang family in the 1930s, Zhang was a progressive young “leftist” and Communist Party supporter but after the founding of the New China in 1949, he was dubbed a counter-revolutionary “rightist,” a public enemy, and jailed in 1957.

Qiu Jiongjiong's experiences growing up have made him something of an eccentric in the art community: he began painting at age two and at age three he began performing local opera (his grandfather was a famous Sichuanese Opera performer). From a young age he dreamed of becoming an artist, and at 18 he left school to pursue this career. In 2007 he completed his first film, Moon Palace, a 100-minute film documenting his father's life.

Film Database

Mr. Zhang Believes