Jia's films are, in fact, and in the same movement, works of a great contemporary artist and sensitive testimonies of the gigantic mutations affecting China, and the whole world. Titles such as Platform, The World, Still Life, A Touch of Sin and The Mountains mark an aesthetic trajectory that is at once highly coherent and constantly renewed. They tell, from an original and relevant point of view, what is being invented in the 21st century. This book contains a long interview with the director about the places where he grew up, where he worked and where he shot, a historical text establishing Jia's place in Chinese cinema and in cinema today, a critical note devoted to each of his films, both features and shorts, enriched with several points of view including interviews with his main collaborators, and texts by Jia unpublished outside China, make this book the first to offer a comprehensive visibility and understanding of this filmmaker's work, and of its importance.