‘Saturday Fiction’ Yanked From China’s Golden Rooster Film Festival on Eve of Debut1 min read
Reading Time: < 1 minuteJust a day before its scheduled China debut, director Lou Ye’s latest film, Saturday Fiction, has been pulled from its slot as the opener of the mainland’s Golden Rooster Film Festival because of unspecified “internal production problems,” according to Chinese film website Mtime. Speculation has been spreading online that it will also be yanked from its currently scheduled 7 December nationwide theatrical release.
The film by Chinese “Sixth Generation” director Lou competed for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in September. It has been replaced on opening night of the Golden Rooster festival by an innocuous music documentary about shakuhachi – long, traditional bamboo flutes that originated from China and spread to Japan – called One Sound, One Life. Directed by Helen Yu, the film grossed just $500,000 in mainland theatres in May.
Photo credit: Film still from ‘Saturday Fiction’; Ying Films
