Ich Bin Ein Beijinger

Greenpeace and the Midi Music Festival - Good news and bad

First the good news: The Midi Music Festival is going Green. and Peaceful. Beijing's marvelous annual band blowout, which takes place from May 1 to 4 this year in Haidian Park, will be working closely with the global environmental organization to promote green consciousness.

Sze Pang Cheung (a.k.a. Kontau, on the left), who has headed up communications in China for Greenpeace for the last four years or so, and Fish Yu, outreach campaigner, came by the Ogilvy office today to give me the low-down on what's happening with Midi. They'll have a booth at the festival, and will debut an environmental doc called "The Planet," shot by big-name European filmmakers and featuring interviews with some serious environmental heavyweights. They've also listed 10 or so main stage bands and half the bands on the secondary stage to do short environmental spots that will be shown during breakdown/setup between bands. And they're bringing Dave Stewart, formerly of the Eurythmics, out to Beijing for the festival. He'll be busting out some old Eurythmics hits, I'm told.

I gotta say, these Greenpeace guys not only dress the part, but they practice what they preach: When the tea lady came into the meeting room with paper cups, Fish quickly asked her to bring ceramic ones--which you see before them above--instead. Respect. They're very cool guys who are obviously committed to their cause, and I'm hoping to help them out however I can. Some years back I spoke with Greenpeace's international director Gerd Leipold here in Beijing, and he impressed me, frankly, with his embrace of globalization, his pragmatism, and his PR savvy. He comes from the PR world, actually, if I recall. (Correction: I recall incorrectly, as Kontau tells me). Same is true of Kontau: He really has his head around marketing.

Okay, so now the bad news: My damned band won't be playing at Midi this year. Not on either stage. For the first time in years. It's our own fault, too, because 1) we didn't sign up because a certain Yunnanese bandmate of mine couldn't tell us by the deadline whether he was coming back from Kunming in time for Midi, and 2) because a certain high-ranking Midi School official (hint: he has the same name as my wife) told me when I called him today to see whether I could wheedle Chunqiu's way onto the roster, if only on the secondary stage, that he thinks we ought to lose our singer because his voice lacks that leather-lunged liliang that Metal singers are supposed to have. Fuckity-fuck fuck fuck. Dave Stewart's looking for some Chinese musicians to help him out on stage; maybe I'll put my hand up to play bass for him. Admittedly, I was no big fan of the Eurythmics, though I do love Annie Lennox's voice, and songs like "Who's That Girl" and "Here Comes the Rain Again" had lovely melodies despite the New Wave synth I so loathe.

SXSW-bound

In about 19 hours I'll be boarding a plane bound for Austin, TX, where I'll be speaking later in the week on a panel at South By Southwest about the Chinese music industry. Thanks to those who commented earlier and asked some good, tough questions.

South By Southwest has turned into more than just a music festival: Right now, the tech geeks have run of the place, and then the film nerds. Wish I could have made it at least for the tech conference. Read up on what's happening there at Read/WriteWeb, which has a man on the ground blogging away about some sessions he's attending.

I'll also take the opportunity after the conference to visit my two best friends, Drew & Dave, who live in Madison and Chicago, respectively. We played in a progressive rock band called Freefall together in college, and the weekend promises to be full of great food, music, and lively conversation.

Anyone Seen Lost in Beijing?

It didn't win at Berlin, but the film Lost in Beijing (迷失北京--also released, I've heard, as Pingguo 苹果) was a helluva good screenplay that I really enjoyed translating a few months back--edgy, humorous, timely. I like how it was cast, with Tong Dawei as the hapless An Kun, lovely Fan Bingbing as the foot masseuse at the center of the story, and Tony Leung as her lecherous boss. Derek Elley has a review at Variety here.

But I haven't seen the damn film yet--not the version that screened in Berlin, not the sanitized one that got passed the censors for broader theatrical release here. And last I checked it hadn't made it into my favorite, er, local DVD distribution outlet. This was the second film I worked on with producer Fang Li and director Li Yu: she did a great job on Dam Street (红彦), which I had the honor of subtitling.

Subtitlng films is one of those things I'm going to have to give up since taking the new Ogilvy job. Used to be one of my favorite ways to make a buck. Over the years I've done subtitles or screenplay translations (often with the help of Brendan) at least a dozen films--mostly, alas, of the "underground" genre that have been viewed by, oh, 18 or 19 guys named Dieter in black turtlenecks.

Father-in-Law in new John Woo Three Kingdoms flick

More family film news: My father-in-law, Zhang Yi, was cast as one of southern potentate Sun Quan's military advisors, Zhang Zhao, in the John Woo epic The Battle of Red Cliffs which will start shooting this spring. I'm trying to get him to finnagle me a part in it--just a walk-on, I don't care, as long as I get to put on some cool armor or ride around on a horse. Dad says Woo is a real gentleman, totally down-to-earth and not at all arrogant. As one who's been uniformly disappointed with China's costume epics of late, I'm not getting my hopes up too high for this one, though how could they fuck it up? It's the best battle in the entire Three Kingdoms, they're basing it not on the Sanguo Yanyi version but rather on the more historically faithful Sanguo Zhi, and as far as I know, Zhang Ziyi is not attached to the picture. Alas, on the other hand, Zhao Wei is; and Chow Yun-Fat plays Zhou Yu, who's really the main character in this.

Cousin Arvin Wins a Silver Bear

  Holy Shit. My first cousin Arvin Chen (my mom's younger sister's older son) won a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for his short film Mei, which he shot in Taipei. It's a nice piece set in a noodle shop about the owner, his daughter who helps him out there but longs to study abroad, her young co-worker who's in love with her.It's just what a short should be. He'll be working on a new feature soon, which I've seen trailers for, and now that he has Das Bear, he's bound to find funding for it pretty easily. It's sort of Woody Allenesque (he compares it to Manhattan), and it promises to be very good. Arvin's a USC Film School graduate, and apprenticed under Edward Yang Te-ch'ang. He won't admit it, but he''s a heck of a good guitar player too. He's always been quiet and pretty modest, but he's actually one of the funniest individuals I know--savagely witty when he wants to be. With my younger brother Jay writing and producing musical theater in the Bay Area now--his second one, Homeland, just debuted in December--I'm betting I'll have a brother with Tony and a cousin with an Oscar before it's all over. (My Grammy hopes perished long, long ago).

Speaking of films at Berlin, one Chinese film I helped out on (translated the screenplay) was then called Lost in Beijing, but screened in Berlin, as I understand it, under the name Pingguo (Apple, the name of the female lead played by Fan Bingbing.) I haven't seen it yet, but read one pretty nasty review of it from the Hollywood Reporter, but the reporter lost credibility with me when he called director Li Yu a "first-time director," when she's done at least two films I know of--the Lesbian film Fish and Elephant and another festival success called Dam Street (or Hong Yan). I personally liked the "Lost in Beijing" screenplay quite a bit. Anyone seen it yet?