“Black Dog,” October 10

Thursday, October 10, 6:30 p.m.

Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second Street, Davenport IA

Lauded by The Independent as "both sweeping and intimate" and by The Upcoming as "a remarkable tale of companionship that hits in all the right spots," Chinese writer/director Guan Hu's Black Dog enjoys an October 10 screening at Davenport's Figge Art Museum, the film's world premiere at this past May's 77th Cannes Film Festival earning it the prestigious Un Certain Regard prize, as well as, for a canine named Xin, the Palm Dog Award last won by Anatomy of a Fall's unforgettable pup Messi.

In Guan Hu's Black Dog, co-written by Ge Rui and Wu Bing, a bus flips over on the outskirts of the Gobi desert on a road that is occupied by countless wild dogs. One of the passengers is former stunt motorcyclist and musician Lang (Eddie Peng), a local celebrity before going to prison for manslaughter a decade ago. As Lang returns home on parole, he sees that the town is no longer what it used to be. Many residents have left, leaving a large population of stray dogs. Lang's band has disbanded. Lang's father owns a zoo that is out of business and suffers from health problems due to alcoholism. And Lang's sister is struggling financially elsewhere and has been unable to visit home for a long time. Forced to now reside with his father, Lang must avoid the spiteful local gangster "Butcher Hu," who aims to exact revenge on Lang for his role in his nephew's death. Lang consequently decides to seek the bounty placed on a wild dog as part of a larger program to remove unwanted animals in preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, and eventually strikes up an unlikely friendship with the canine.

For his film, Guan Hu sought to tell the story of ordinary people left behind by the rapid economic development in China, and was determined to cast actors who could bring a sense of realism to the project. One of those actors, Eddie Peng, established such a strong bond with Xin, the dog featured in the film, that he adopted the dog after filming had wrapped. Black Dog was selected to be screened in the Un Certain Regard section of the 77th Cannes Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on May 18, 2024, and was officially released in mainland China on June 15 and in Singapore on July 25. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 92 percent of a current 12 critics' reviews are positive, with Time Out's Philip De Semlyen raving, "Next to Umberto D., Chinese director Guan Hu may just have made the enduring masterpiece of man-and-dog movies – Citizen Canine, if you will – in this soul-filling homecoming odyssey set on the windswept fringes of the Gobi Desert."

Black Dog will be screened in the Figge Art Museum's John Deere Auditorium on October 10, admission to the 6:30 p.m. showing is free, and more information is available by calling (563)326-7804 and visiting FiggeArtMuseum.org.