The artist Shen Jianhua has fled Shanghai to take up residence in a picturesque mountain village, near the shores of Erhai Lake in Dali. There, he plays host to an apprentice, his young family, and a group of unconventional acolytes, including grandmothers from the Bai ethnic minority, whose colorful outfits match the eye-popping saturation and energy of their folklorist paintings. Zhang Yang’s film brings forth the beauty of the everyday in a rural China, revealing the inexorable cycle of life in a rapidly modernizing country. His complex characters populate a film whose every frame is rendered as poetically and carefully as the artwork its subjects painstakingly create. Shen welcomes a new child, his apprentice proposes to his girlfriend, and the grandmothers renovate their ancestral homes in anticipation of future in-laws. A rare glimpse into remote China, both Up the Mountain and its stable of folk painters imaginatively preserve an endangered culture in real time. (AS) Presented by North Villiage Arts District