KAILI DREAMSCAPE: THE WORLD OF BI GAN Film Series at the Chelsea

Have you ever had a dream so real it feels like a memory? Maybe as time passes an object, person, or place opens a door to a dream remembered. Suddenly that feeling or sensual experience is connected to waking life, and that dream is tossed in amongst memories, mixed together like a pile of chaotic puzzle pieces your mind tries to fit together sensibly. If you live life long enough in one place, around the same people, your mind can recreate a dreamscape out of those familiarities.

The doors that blur memory and dream, time and space, mark the thresholds filmmaker and poet, Bi Gan, is unafraid to cross. For Bi Gan, that syrupy, uncanny dreamscape in his mind, hinging on familiarity, is a remembrance of Kaili, Guizhou, China, his birthplace. His major feature films are all set and filmed in Kaili. Bi Gan’s films are doors into that sensual, poetic world – At the Chelsea, these doors are open.

Welcome to the World of Bi Gan.

Monday, 1/19 @ 7PM – KAILI BLUES (Bi Gan, 2015, 113min, China, NR)
Featuring a post-film discussion lead by Chelsea Film Programmer, Matt Brown.

Monday, 1/26 @ 7PM – LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (Bi Gan, 2019, 138min, China, NR) + A SHORT STORY (Bi Gan, 2022, 15min, China, NR)
Featuring a post-film discussion lead by Chelsea Film Programmer, Matt Brown.

Friday, 1/30 – RESURRECTION (Bi Gan, 2025, 160min, China, NR)
Full weekly schedule begins Friday, 1/30! Starring Jackson Yee and Shu Qi with an entrancing score by M83, Bi Gan’s RESURRECTION, burns through the silver screen, beckoning us through a portal into his most ambitious and visually sumptuous dream yet. You won’t regret stepping through it!