Contact:	Suzanne Trimel				For immediate release
		(212) 854-6579				February 2, 1998
		smt4@columbia.edu


China Scholars at Columbia Greet Tour
Celebrating 50 Years of Chinese Film


	A top-level Chinese film and television industry delegation that includes the 
award-winning director Zhang Yimou will join scholars at Columbia University 
Thursday, Feb. 5 for a public seminar on Chinese films as they kick off a North 
American tour celebrating five decades of Chinese cinema.
	The films will be screened at City Cinemas Village East in New York Feb. 
6-12 and then travel to Los Angeles, Houston, Santa Barbara and Montreal, 
Canada.
	The delegation will join Columbia faculty at 10:30 A.M. Feb. 5 in Room 403 
Kent Hall on the campus at Broadway at 116th Street for an hour-long discussion 
titled "A Celebration of Chinese Films: Five Decades of Outstanding Chinese 
Cinema."
	Columbia professors who will participate in the discussion are:  Lewis 
Cole, chairman of the Film Division; Richard Pena, assistant film professor and 
program director of the Lincoln Center Film Society; Paul Anderer and David 
Wong of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures; and Madeleine 
Zelin, director of the East Asia Institute.
	In addition to Zhang, director of the acclaimed films Raise the Red Lantern 
and To Live, members of the delegation are directors, actors and senior film and 
television industry leaders, many of whom hold high government posts. Led by 
Zhao Shi, Vice Minister for Radio, Film and TV, the group includes Feng 
Xiaoning, director of Red River Valley; He Qun, director of Boys and Girls; and 
actress Ning Jing, star of Red River Valley.
	The seminar will kick off an unprecedented showcase from mainland 
China of 17 films from 1952 to 1997, most of which have never been seen in the 
United States.  They are: The Lin Family Shop and New Year Sacrifice   from the 
1950s; Two Stage Sisters from the 1960s; Woman Demon Human and The 
Sacrifice of Youth from the 1980s and Opium War; Spring Festival; Ballad of 
Yellow River; Return of Heroes; Concerto of Life; The Story of Qui Ju; Colors of the 
Blind; A Tree; Teenagers; Looking for Fun; Red River Valley; and Live at Peace 
from the 1990s.
	Columbia has a long tradition of involvement in and scholarship about 
China and Asia and is home to important centers of learning about the region, 
including the Starr East Asian Library and the East Asian Institute.  Some of the 
leading China experts in the West have been members of the Columbia faculty.

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