Co-sponsored by the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television.
Wednesday, November 12, 2025
10:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Darren Star Screening Room
Melnitz Hall
Free event - seating is limited.
Please join us for a special screening with award-winning documentary filmmaker Zhao Liang, who will revisit his 2015 film BEHEMOTH in dialogue with CCS Director Michael Berry.
About the film:
BEHEMOTH (2015 · Feature Film · 90 min.)
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay;
-- Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village (1770)
Over two centuries ago, British poet Goldsmith wrote down these words, and they describe our present day so perfectly.
Human behavior has always performed itself with lunacy and absurdity, and we have never been able to rid our body of greed and arrogance. The spiral journey of civilization is thus filled with deviations and regressions. It seems as if we are taken by a force, monstrous, invisible and unconquerable.
However, we created this invisible beast ourselves. It is our desire. We are the victim and the victimizer.
In The Divine Comedy, Dante travels in his dreams through Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. In BEHEMOTH, I borrow this idea and depict an enormous industry chain: coal mining – iron mining – iron manufacture – architectual reinforcing bar manufacture – the construction of “ghost town” in Erdos. The colour of red, grey and blue represents respectively Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Through the contemplative gaze of this film, I investigate the living conditions of industrial workers as well as the short-sighted urban development. It is my critique and meditation on the modern civilization.
For trailer and additional information, see: http://zhaoliangstudio.com/work/behemoth
About the director:
ZHAO LIANG, Filmmaker, Artist
Living in Beijing since 1993, Zhao has been working as an independent documentary filmmaker as well as a multimedia artist in photography and video art. His films were premiered at Cannes, Venezia, Berlinale; art works being exhibited at the International Center of Photography (New York), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), Haus der Kullturen der Welt (Berlin), Sala Grande Venezia (Venice), Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid) and numerous film festivals, art galleries and museums worldwide.
Sponsor(s): Center for Chinese Studies