International Film Club: "One Second", dir. Zhang Yimou (China)

Set amidst the chaos of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, a nameless work camp escapee (Zhang Yi) crosses paths with an orphan (Liu Haocun) and a travelling projectionist (Fan Wei) as he desperately attempts to view a newsreel film which features the last recorded glimpse of his dead daughter. "One Second" is a moving historical drama that beautifully captures how cinema has come to shape both our personal memories and our collective consciousness.

"One Second" is the fifth film of 2026–27 season of the International Film Club here at UCI, entitled “Into the Abyss: Films Within Films.” Referring to the artistic practice of “mise en abyme,” which means literally both "to place into the center" and "to place into the abyss," the phrase, once derived from the traditions of medieval heraldry, now more commonly describes the practice of placing an image within another image — or in a cinematic context, the placing of a story within a story, or a film within a film. Nevertheless, whether it is the illusory depth of Diego Velázquez’s remarkable 17th century painting “Las Meninas,” which depicts not only various figures of the Spanish court but iconically also the painter himself caught in the reflection of a mirror in the background of the scene, or the selection of six films chosen for this year’s season of the International Film Club, these curious, one might even call them three-dimensional, works allow us to think differently about the art-form we love. Across these six films, the possibilities of what cinema can do are called into question, exploring how we connect with it, evolve alongside it, and what it does to us in turn, while spanning musical comedy, drama, and horror from the mid-century to the modern day. While each selection represents some form of mise en abyme — whether that is a story within a story or a film within a film — no film will be like the other, and one month may bring laughter and the other tears. Yet altogether each film represents a new dimension of cinematic possibility that we are excited to share with you all. As ever, the International Film Club is proud to celebrate these six brilliant works of self-reflexive cinema in UCI’s state of the art McCormick Screening Room (Humanities Gateway 1070), and our showings are always relaxed and always free of charge. We hope you will join us as we delve into cinema’s abyss!

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