The Calgary Cinematheque is pleased to announce a screening of Jia Zhang-ke's I Wish I Knew, his powerful, playful and ravishing new documentary about Shanghai. Zhang-ke has emerged in recent years as a master of world cinema and the leading face of the so-called 'sixth generation' of Chinese cinema. His previous films, such as The World (2004), Still Life (winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, 2006), and 24 City (2008), look at industrialization, globalization, and the changing face of China, often via China's changing landscapes. I Wish I Knew carries on that exploration in a more focused way, looking at the turbulent history of a mythical city.

Originally commissioned by the Chinese government for the 2010 Shanghai World's Fair, I Wish I Knew is a loving portrait of a city that is the site of significant political, criminal and artistic activity. Gloriously shot images of landmark sites such as Victoria Harbour and the Expo grounds serve as backdrops to stories of a city in constant change, most often stories of exile or arrival. Zhang-ke interviews people who experienced the momentous changes wrought by the Communist victory in 1949 and the Cultural Revoution of the 1960s, as well as people who worked on some of the many famous films made about the city, by directors such as Hou Hsiao-hsien, Wong Kar Wai and Michelangelo Antonioni. Reminiscences of the city are interspersed with clips from these films, along with more poetic sequences of the actress Zhao Tao wandering through some of Shanghai's contemporary industrial landscapes.

In the film, Shanghai emerges as a city as much of the imagination as of reality; a gateway to China and to the world; and the witness to some of the most profound political and economic changes of the twentieth century.