Liu Jiayin

{{Infobox person

| name = Liu Jiayin

| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|df=yes|1981|8|20}}{{cite web |title=Niu Pi |url=https://www.berlinale.de/external/programme/archive/pdf/20050028.pdf |website=Berlin International Film Festival |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220522012914/https://www.berlinale.de/external/programme/archive/pdf/20050028.pdf |archive-date=22 May 2022}}

| birth_place = Beijing, China

| alma_mater = Beijing Film Academy

| occupation = Film director

| notable_works = Oxhide (2005)

}}

{{Infobox Chinese

| t = 劉伽茵

| s = 刘伽茵

| order = st

| p = Liú Jiāyīn

}}

Liu Jiayin (born 20 August 1981) is a Chinese independent filmmaker and educator from Beijing. She directed two experimental features combining documentary and narrative elements, Oxhide (2005) and Oxhide II (2009), both of which received international awards.

Liu was called "one of the most exciting and unique talents to emerge from China in the 2000s" by The Hollywood Reporter,{{cite web |first=Matthew |last=Scott |date=17 June 2023 |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/shanghai-three-chinese-directors-to-watch-1235517289/ |title=Shanghai: Three Chinese Directors to Watch |work=The Hollywood Reporter |access-date=26 January 2025}} with Oxhide being described in 2006 as "the most important Chinese film of the past several years".{{cite magazine |first=Shelly |last=Kraicer |date=Winter 2006 |url=http://www.cinema-scope.com/cs25/spot_jiayin_oxhide.htm |magazine=Cinema Scope |issue=25 |title=Oxhide. (Liu Jiayin, China) |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060104223431/http://www.cinema-scope.com/cs25/spot_jiayin_oxhide.htm |archive-date=4 January 2006 |url-status=dead |access-date=26 January 2025}} She has written television dramas and currently teaches screenwriting at the Beijing Film Academy.{{cite web |first=Daniel |last=Witkin |date=9 November 2018 |url=https://reverseshot.org/symposiums/entry/2507/Liu_Jiayin |title=Liu Jiayin |work=Reverse Shot |publisher=Museum of the Moving Image |access-date=26 January 2025}}

Career

Liu aspired to become a filmmaker as early as high school. In 1999, she enrolled in the Beijing Film Academy, majoring in screenwriting. As her graduation project for her master's degree, she completed Oxhide, her full-length feature debut. Liu used digital video and a series of long takes to stage scenes from the life of her family in their cramped Beijing apartment. Her mother and her father{{mdash}}a struggling skilled leather craftsman whose work material gives the film its title{{mdash}}perform their own parts, alongside the 23-year-old director as herself.

Oxhide screened at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize and Caligari Film Prize. It also screened at the Hong Kong International Film Festival, where Liu received the Golden DV Award for best digital work, and at the Vancouver International Film Festival, where she received the top Dragons and Tigers Award for East Asian cinema.{{cite web |url=https://icarusfilms.com/df-oxh |title=Oxhide: (Niu Pi) |work=Icarus Films |access-date=26 January 2025}}{{cite magazine |first=Peter |last=Rist |date=December 2009 |url=https://offscreen.com/view/interview_liu_jiayin |title=Interview with Liu Jiayin |volume=13 |issue=12 |work=Offscreen |access-date=26 January 2025}}

In 2009 Liu finished her second film, Oxhide II. With a similar focus on her family, this "sequel" was seen as more simple in construction, employing only nine separate shots in a running time of over two hours. All the film's narrative occurs in the real-time process of Liu and her family preparing to make, making, cooking and eating jiaozi (Chinese dumplings). A marked contrast not only to commercial film aesthetics but also with other independent films from China, Oxhide II premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival as part of its Directors Fortnight program. At the end of the year, Oxhide II was named one of the three masterpieces of Chinese cinema in the 2000s by critic Shelly Kraicer.{{cite web |first=Shelly |last=Kraicer |date=11 January 2010|url=http://dgeneratefilms.com/critical-essays/shellys-top-ten-mainland-chinese-films-of-the-2000s/ |title=Shelly's Top Ten Mainland Chinese films of the 2000s |website=dGenerate Films |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100115052751/http://dgeneratefilms.com/critical-essays/shellys-top-ten-mainland-chinese-films-of-the-2000s |archive-date=15 January 2010 |access-date=26 January 2025}}

Filmography

class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
scope="col" \| Year ! scope="col" \| English title ! scope="col" \| Chinese title ! scope="col" class=unsortable \| Notes
scope="row" \| 2002 \| The Train \| 火车 \| Short film
scope="row" \| 2005 \| Oxhide \| 牛皮 \|
scope="row" \| 2009 \| Oxhide II \| 牛皮贰 \|
scope="row" \| 2010 \| 607 \| \| Short film
scope="row" \| 2023 \| All Ears \| 不虚此行 \|

class="wikitable plainrowheaders"

scope="col" | Year

! scope="col" | English title

! scope="col" | Chinese title

! scope="col" class=unsortable | Notes

scope="row" | 2002

| The Train

| 火车

| Short film

scope="row" | 2005

| Oxhide

| 牛皮