''Kaili Blues'' ( zh , t=路邊野餐 , s=路边野餐, ''Roadside Picnic'') is a 2015 Chinese film written and directed by
Bi Gan
Prince Bi Gan (, Bǐgān) was a prominent Chinese figure during the Shang dynasty. He was a son of King Wen Ding, and an uncle of King Zhou, and served as the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Shang. He was later worshipped as the God of Wealth. ...
. The film follows a rural doctor's search for his nephew. The film won awards at the
Locarno Festival
The Locarno Film Festival is an annual film festival, held every August in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narrative, documentary, sh ...
, the
52nd Golden Horse Awards
The 52nd Golden Horse Awards (Mandarin： 第52屆金馬獎) honored the best Chinese-language films and filmmakers of 2014–15 and took place on 21 November 2015 at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei, Taiwan. The ceremony presented 23 categor ...
, and the
Three Continents Festival
The Festival des 3 Continents is an annual film festival held since 1979 in Nantes, France, and is devoted to the cinemas of Asia, and Africa and Latin America. It was founded by Philippe and Alain Jalladeau.
Bi primarily filmed ''Kaili Blues'' in his hometown of
Kaili City
Kaili (, Hmu language: ''Kad Linx'') is a county-level city under the administration of Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, in southeastern Guizhou province, People's Republic of China. It is the center of Miao culture, hosting more ...
. The scenes in Dangmai were shot in the nearby village of Ping Liang. The film's budget was exhausted after completing the 41-minute
long take
In filmmaking, a long take (also called a continuous take or continuous shot) is a shot with a duration much longer than the conventional editing pace either of the film itself or of films in general. Significant camera movement and elaborate blo ...
of Dangmai. To finish the film, Bi assembled a small team to shoot the rest of the film using a portable Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera.
Bi originally proposed the title ''Huang ran lu'', after Portuguese author
Fernando Pessoa
Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa (; 13 June 1888 – 30 November 1935) was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher, and philosopher, described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and ...
Roadside Picnic
''Roadside Picnic'' (Russian: , ''Piknik na obochine'', ) is a philosophical science fiction novel by Soviet-Russian authors Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, written in 1971 and published in 1972. It is the brothers' most popular and most widely tran ...
'', which Tarkovsky adapted into the 1979 film ''
Stalker
Stalking is unwanted and/or repeated surveillance by an individual or group toward another person. Stalking behaviors are interrelated to harassment and intimidation and may include following the victim in person or monitoring them. The term ...
''.
Release
''Kaili Blues'' premiered on August 11, 2015 at the 68th
Locarno Festival
The Locarno Film Festival is an annual film festival, held every August in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narrative, documentary, sh ...
. It grossed 930,549 USD total worldwide.
The film won the Best Emerging Director prize at Locarno, the Best New Film Director award at the
52nd Golden Horse Awards
The 52nd Golden Horse Awards (Mandarin： 第52屆金馬獎) honored the best Chinese-language films and filmmakers of 2014–15 and took place on 21 November 2015 at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei, Taiwan. The ceremony presented 23 categor ...