Bi Gan
Directing
Biography
Bi Gan (Chinese: 毕赣, born 4 June 1989) is a Chinese film director, screenwriter, poet, and photographer. His first feature film, Kaili Blues, was released in 2015 and won Best New Film Director at the 52nd Golden Horse Awards, the FIPRESCI Prize, The Golden Montgolfiere Prize at the 37th Festival of the Three Continents in Nantes,[3] and the Best First Feature Film Award at The 68th Locarno Film Festival. Bi Gan was born in Kaili City in Guizhou Province on June 4, 1989. He is an ethnic Miao. From 2008 to 2011, Bi Gan studied Television directing in Radio, Film, and Television Cadre College in Taiyuan, Shanxi. The college was renamed in 2013 as Communication University of Shanxi. During his college years, Bi watched Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker, later stating in an interview, "Cinema can be different [from mainstream films]; you can make what you like. What I had seen up to that point were mainly Hollywood films. What I was taught was pretty boring." Because of this particular film, he made up his mind to pursue filmmaking. "Before that, my parents and my relatives thought I would become jobless after graduation since I didn't want to do anything." In 2010 he made the short fiction film South, which won the first prize at the university-sponsored "Guang Sui Ying Dong" (Light Follows the Motion of Shadow) Film Festival. Two years later in 2012, he made a black-and-white short film Diamond Sutra (《金刚经》; also known as The Poet and Singer), which features a story of murder in a small isolated town in the mountain. The film received Special Mention Award from the 19th Hong Kong ifva (Incubator for Film and Visual media in Asia), an award organized by Hong Kong Arts Centre,[9] and was ranked top 10 at the 9th China Independent Film Festival in Nanjing, China. In 2015, Bi's debut feature film, Kaili Blues, written by him, gave the emerging director wider exposure. The film also garnered the Best New Film Director at the 52nd Golden Horse Awards, the FIPRESCI Prize, the Golden Montgolfiere Prize at the 37th Festival of the Three Continents in Nantes, and the Best First Feature Film Award at the 68th Locarno Film Festival. In 2017, Bi wrote and directed his second feature film Long Day's Journey into Night, starring Tang Wei, Huang Jue, Sylvia Chang, and Lee Hong-chi. The film is also based in Guizhou Province and was released in 2018.
Known For
Roast is a Chinese stand-up comedy show. In each episode, an experienced celebrity with great interity is invited to be the "roastee" who will invite his or her friends to join the show and take the challenge of "roasting". The show is essentially a comedy performance in the form of talk show. Through the teasing and mockery among guests, the correct philosophies are conveyed in the hilarious moments.
Roast
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Thirteen Talks
In a future where humanity has surrendered its ability to dream in exchange for immortality, an outcast finds illusion, nightmarish visions, and beauty in an intoxicating world of his own making.
Resurrection
Luo Hongwu returns to Kaili, the hometown from which he fled many years ago. He begins the search for the woman he loved and whom he has never been able to forget.
Long Day's Journey Into Night
Chen Sheng goes off in search of his nephew who has been abandoned by his father. Along the way, he encounters numerous people from his past and also those from his future.
Kaili Blues
This is a long-form, in-depth podcast hosted by Luo Yonghao, with each episode running three to five hours. We engage in extended conversations with figures shaped by the currents of our time, focusing on technology and the humanities—telling personal stories of fate and exploring the forces driving our era.
Crossroads with Luo Yonghao
In the 1990s, a group of students on the campus of the Chinese Southern Academy of Arts are pursuing their studies and preparing to face the world. China is opening up to the West and the students’ lives are a tangle of love stories and friendships, artistic research, ideals and ambitions brought about by new influences. Caught between tradition and modernity, they have to decide who they want to become.
Art College 1994
An abandoned cat embarks on a journey to discover the most precious thing in the world.
A Short Story
From the music of French composer Evgueni Galperine, Chinese filmmaker Bi Gan crafts a story that harkens back to the phantom rides of yore as he constructs a visual poem befitting the propulsive composition. This short film is part of the 2x25 Project of Film Fest Gent and the World Soundtrack Awards. The project commissioned 25 composers to compose a short piece of music, after which 25 filmmakers made short films that are the ultimate symbioses of music and cinematography, fitting completely within the DNA of the festival. The result: 25 exceptional films where the music inspired the form, narrative and texture.
Shards of Moon
Zhang Yinglong, who had been working alone in Beijing, returned to his hometown to visit relatives and learned that due to logging and coal mining, the environment in his hometown had deteriorated from once being a place of abundant water and grass to now being covered in yellow sand. Despite the opposition of his relatives, he resigned from his job as a deputy general manager and sold his house to return to his hometown to fight the desert. After experiencing difficulties and perseverance, he has now become a "national model worker" with green trees lining the streets.
Starfall
A visually splendid poem that provocatively but elegantly juxtaposes a poet, a singer, a river, a pair of murderers, and the Diamond Sutra.
The Poet and Singer
The feature debut from Bi Gan, a story about three men, their pasts and their fates.
Tiger
While studying in college, Bi Gan finished his first work Nanfang in 2010.
South
At an interview for Resurrection in 2025, Bi Gan revealed the seven-year wait since Long Day’s Journey Into Night won’t be repeated, as his next film can be expected in two years.