A Wider Angle Film Series: DEAD PIGS

For May, A Wider Angle, our monthly foreign and independent film series, will screen the 2018 film Dead Pigs, directed by first-time feature film director Cathy Yan, whose next film was the DC Comics superhero film Birds of Prey. Dead Pigs made its world premiere at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival before garnering a number of other accolades during its film festival run.

Based on true events that took place in China in 2013, the critically-acclaimed (97% on Rotten Tomatoes) film weaves together several seemingly disconnected stories, of characters such as a down-on-his-luck pig farmer, a poor rich girl, a lovestruck restaurant worker, and an American expat (played by David Rysdahl from Oppenheimer and the most recent season of Fargo) chasing the Chinese Dream, in a biting satire and commentary on the swift embrace of capitalistic tendencies in modern day China. The real-life story involving thousands of the titular porcine corpses floating down the Huangpu River serves as the convergence of the fates of the film's main characters.

In Chinese and English  with English subtitles. (Running time 122 minutes)

For a review of the film, click https://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/dead-pigs-review-1202675664/

A Wider Angle film series is made possible through funding provided by the Friends of the Library.