State limitations on freedom of expression, the profusion of black market DVDs, and ready access to illegal download sites have taken their toll on China's film industry, but Beijing has enough film fanatics to support a handful of theaters. Cherry Lane Movies (tel. 139/0113-4745; ¥50/$6), run by a long-tenured and long-winded American expatriate, shows older and some new Chinese films with English subtitles on the weekends; films are listed at www.cherrylanemovies.com.cn and are screened inside the Kent Centre, at Liangma Qiao Lu 29. They also have summer screenings at the Sino-Swiss Hotel. Box Cafe (Hezi Kafeiguan; Xi Wang Zhuang Xiaoqu 5; tel. 010/6279-1280), a smallish cafe near the east gate of Tsinghua University (Qinghua Daxue), offers free screenings on Tuesday and Saturday of Chinese independent and experimental films and a few foreign films of the same nature. The UME International Cineplex (Huaxing Guoji Yingcheng; Shuangyushu Xueyuan Nan Lu 44; tel. 010/6255-5566; ¥50-¥80/$6-$10), a full-scale theater just north of the Third Ring Road and southeast of Renmin University, occasionally shows undubbed Hollywood films and Chinese blockbusters with English subtitles, as does the more conveniently located Oriental Plaza Multiplex, right next to Be There or Be Square, on the east side of the mall.
When international film festival directors go looking for new, edgy films, they visit Hart Center of Arts (Hate Shalong; tel. 010/6435-3570; www.hart.com.cn) in the Factory 798 complex which hosts festivals with themes no one else is game to touch, and regularly screens movies at 8pm on Saturday (call to check). Most of the work shown here has not passed the censors.
