An Edinburgh Fringe in China? Sounds ambitious for a whole lot of reasons, but that’s what Split Work are hoping to do with the JUE Festival, an extended lineup of artists, performances, screenings and exhibitions in Beijing and Shanghai.

Beijing’s one and only arthouse cinema, MOMA Broadway Cinematheque, is proving a godsend for film fans who love the big-screen experience, but want something more challenging than multiplex spectacles. This Friday MOMA BC kick off their first “Great Masters Retrospective” with a season of eight works by Xie Jin, the exemplary representative of China’s “third generation” of filmmakers. Although not well known in the English-speaking film world, here in China Xie Jin is revered as one of the nation’s great directors.

It’s a busy week for film in Beijing, with a big-name movie premiering and a clutch of indie Chinese films screening around town.

A two hour feature comprising just 23 shots, filmed entirely in one apartment starring the filmmaker’s family. On paper it sounds like a teeth-grinding film student project. In reality its one of the most acclaimed and innovative slices of recent Chinese cinema – Liu Jiayin’s Oxhide. Beijing audiences now have the chance to see Liu’s film, and its sequel Oxhide II, on the big screen over the next few days at 798’s UCCA.

Early this month we did a post on the TEDx Beijing talks appearing as videos online. TED – Technology, Entertainment, Design – is an annual gathering of the world’s leading thinkers that has been described as “the ultimate brain spa.” TEDx is a series of local programs in various cities, and last November saw the first TEDx gathering in Beijing. Since our original post another three new talks have appeared and are now available for viewing.

dGenerate Films is a new distribution company bringing the best of contemporary Chinese independent cinema to the US, through digital downloads from their informative website, DVDs and regular events. dGenerate are now hitting Beijing with a series of monthly filmmaker talks at the Apple Store in the Village, Sanlitun. The talks will feature independent Chinese filmmakers talking about their craft and how digital technology informs their work. The events are free, but please note they will be presented in Chinese only.

Dan Edwards talked to dGenerate Films founder and president Karin Chien about the Apple Store events and China’s digital filmmaking revolution.

CNReviews.com has a translation of an interesting post by Hong Huang, described as “a magazine publisher and an extremely popular blogger on the Chinese internet,” looking at notions of culture and soft power in modern China. The post discusses a controversy dating back to 2006, when Professor Zhang Yiwu of Peking University wrote in an article published in New Weekly; “One Yao Ming, one Zhang Ziyi are more effective than ten thousand Confuciuses… Only if we emphasize Zhang Ziyi the way we emphasize Confucius does Chinese culture have a future.”

Confucius, the latest blockbuster ordered up in celebration of China’s 60th, presents Chow Yun-fat as … well, you know who. In addition to partying extra hard for the sage’s 2560th birthday, please notice that the film is another step in the government’s promotion of Kongzi as a symbol of Chinese culture. (Think “Confucius Institute,” the state-sponsored academy that has branched out from Beijing to 88 countries and regions across the globe.) Of course, the great sage as a figurehead for contemporary Chinese society isn’t at all far-fetched. Much of Confucius’s legacy is quite relevant to modern life.

Today is your last chance to catch Avatar on a regular cinema screen, as all non-3D versions of the film are being pulled from Chinese theatres to make way for the locally-produced Confucius. 3D and Imax screenings will continue, though IMAX tickets can cost anything up to RMB 150.

Zhang Yimou has rounded off an eventful year with a box-office success – his recently-released remake of the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple, entitled A Simple Noodle Story. The Global Times reported earlier this month on the film’s first three nights of release: