Early Life
Jia's interest in film began in the early 1990s, as an art student at the Shanxi University in Taiyuan. On a lark, Jia attended a screening of Chen Kaige's masterpiece, Yellow Earth. The film, according to Jia, was life changing, and convinced the young man that he wanted to be a director. Jia would eventually make it to China's prestigious Beijing Film Academy in 1993, as a film theory major, giving him access to both western and eastern classics, as well as an extensive film library.
Read more about this topic: Jia Zhangke
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