Profile
The International Live Theatre Festival launched on 14th November and brought ten live screenings of plays from globally renowned theatre companies such as the National Theatre Live, The Royal Shakespeare Company live from Stratford-upon-Avon, Almedia Theatre Live and Branagh Live – a first of kind festival in China. The festival will also visit Wuhan and Kunming, with over 60 screenings in total – hoping to promote this new theatre format to a wider audience.
National Theatre Live launched in 2009 broadcasting Phèdre featuring Helen Mirren and has since broadcasted more than 50 productions National Theatre, Donmar Warehouse, Young Vic Theatre and Broadway in New York. In Chengdu this month Romeo and Juliet, Obsession, The Winter’s Tale, Amadeus and Hamlet will be broadcasted.
The Winter’s Tale
The Winter’s Tale is possibly Shakespeare’s most perfect play with its rhythm of lost and found – a tarnished fairytale that redeems itself. It’s a play that, when it works, casts a spell like no other, and this production, co-directed by Branagh and Rob Ashford, is magical. It is hard to imagine the play more movingly performed. It’s a gift to eye and heart.
King Leontes, possessed by a mad jealousy, believes his pregnant wife Hermione to be having an affair with his childhood friend King Polixenes.
He orders that Hermione’s baby, Perdita, be abandoned. Hermione and their young son die of distress and Leontes is overcome with remorse. Perdita is found and raised by a shepherd, and falls in love with Florizel, son of Polixenes. They flee Polixenes, who is consumed with fury at his son’s love for a commoner, and seek shelter with Leontes. Perdita is recognized. Hermione returns and the family is reunited.
19:30 Friday 8th December
PALACE Cinema (Sino-Ocean Taikoo Li)
成都百丽宫影城太古里店 – 中纱帽街8号成都远洋太古里负一层M048号
Book Tickets
Amadeus
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a rowdy young prodigy, arrives in Vienna, the music capital of the world – and he’s determined to make a splash. Awe struck by his genius, court composer Antonio Salieri has the power to promote his talent or destroy his name. Seized by obsessive jealousy he begins a war with Mozart, with music, and ultimately, with God.
After winning multiple Olivier and TonyAwards when it had its premiere at the NationalTheatre in 1979, Amadeus was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film.
Now Lucian Msamati (Luther, Game of Thrones, NTLive: The Comedy of Errors) plays Salieri in Peter Shaffer’s iconic play.
19:30 Saturday 9th December
PALACE Cinema (Sino-Ocean Taikoo Li)
成都百丽宫影城太古里店 – 中纱帽街8号成都远洋太古里负一层M048号
Book Tickets
Hamlet
Academy Award nominee Benedict Cumberbatch (BBC’s Sherlock, The Imitation Game, Frankenstein at the National Theatre) takes on the title role of Shakespeare’s great tragedy.
Directed by Lyndsey Turner (Posh, Chimerica) and produced by Sonia Friedman Productions, National Theatre Live will broadcast this eagerly awaited production live to cinemas.
As a country arms itself for war, a family tears itself apart. Forced to avenge his father’s death but paralysed by the task ahead, Hamlet rages against the impossibility of his predicament, threatening both his sanity and the security of the state.
19:30 Sunday 10th December
Palace Cinema (CAPITAMALL TIANFU CD)
成都百丽宫影城凯德天府店, 天仁路388号“凯德·天府”五层
Book Tickets
Tracy Lee | IPF
Tracy is a Chengdu local and is passionate about film as a medium to bring people together. She organises IPF as a platform for screenings, acting workshops and small festivals in hope of elevating the art scene in Chengdu to meet that of bigger cities in China. More about the film festival: ntliveinchina
More about IPF: ipf-com
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