Zhao Tao

A Touch of Sin

Xiao Yu

Four people in different provinces are driven to violent ends: An angry miner is enraged by corruption in his village. A migrant discovers the possibilities of owning a firearm. A receptionist is pushed beyond her limits by an abusive client. A young factory worker goes from one job to the next.

Unknown Pleasures

Qiao Qiao

Two disaffected, unemployed Chinese youth drift through life on the streets of their industrial town, their paths crossing with that of a local young singer and dancer working for a liquor company as a spokesmodel.

Ash Is Purest White

Zhao Qiao

Set in China's underworld, this tale of love and betrayal follows a dancer who fired a gun to protect her mobster boyfriend during a fight. On release from prison 5 years later, she sets out to find him.

Living

Hong Yu

No description available

Caught by the Tides

Qiao Qiao

Years after her boyfriend left her for the big city and promised to bring her there after he’s settled down, a Chinese woman sets out on a journey to be reunited with him.

Mountains May Depart

Shen Tao

The life of Tao, and those close to her, is explored in three different time periods: 1999, 2014, and 2025.

Still Life

Shen-Hong Guo

A town in Fengjie county is gradually being demolished and flooded to make way for the Three Gorges Dam. A man and woman visit the town to locate their estranged spouses, and become witness to the societal changes.

Shun Li and the Poet

Shun Li

A study of the friendship between a Chinese woman and a fisherman who came to Italy from Yugoslavia many years ago, who live in a small city-island in the Veneto lagoon.

24 City

Su Na

As a decades-old state-run aeronautics munitions factory in downtown Chengdu, China is being torn down for the construction of the titular luxury apartment complex, director Jia Zhangke interviews various people affiliated with it about their experiences.

The World

Tao

At Beijing World Park, a bizarre cross-pollination of Las Vegas and Epcot Center where visitors can interact with famous international monuments without ever leaving the city’s suburbs, a security guard betrays his dancer girlfriend by pursuing another woman.

3.11 A Sense of Home Films

(segment "Alone Together")

In memory of the Japanese earthquake on 3.11, each director presents a 3 minute and 11 second short film in tribute to those who were lost that day.

Platform

Yin Ruijuan

China’s rapid changes from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, as seen through the lives of four performers in a theater troupe.

Cry Me a River

An ancestral city; through its delicious botanical garden and its branched canals, we observe the clues and traces of its ancient culture. Two couples of men and women, former lovers, meet again one year later. The yesterday's breath of youth is still perceptible in their conversations. Is it still possible for us to love? Does youth really have an end? Like the networks linking the old city, what type of ecological existence does their culture require?

I Wish I Knew

Self

Focuses on the people, their stories and architecture spanning from the mid-1800s, when Shanghai was opened as a trading port, to the present day.

Where Has Time Gone?

A short film omnibus featuring the work of five directors representing five countries involved in the 2017 BRICS summit, an annual international relations conference held between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The collection—taking the concept of time as a unifying theme—depicts the economic, political, and social alienations and contradictions that create, compound, and structure issues as wide-ranging as poverty, class stratification, and homeless; familial distress; spousal abuse; and natural disaster.

Ten Thousand Waves

Blue Goddess

TEN THOUSAND WAVES is a 9-screen installation shot on location in China. The work poetically weaves together stories linking China’s ancient past and present. Through an architectural installation, the work explores the movement of people across countries and continents and meditates on unfinished journeys. Conceived and made over four years, TEN THOUSAND WAVES sees Julien collaborating with some of China’s leading artistic voices, including the legendary siren of Chinese cinema Maggie Cheung; rising star of Chinese film Zhao Tao; poet Wang Ping; master calligrapher Gong Fagen; artist Yang Fudong; acclaimed cinematographer Zhao Xiaoshi; and a 100-strong Chinese cast and crew. The film’s original musical score is by fellow East Londoner Jah Wobble and The Chinese Dub Orchestra and contemporary classical composer Maria de Alvear.

Walking on the Wild Side

Han Jie’s feature debut draws on his own experiences growing up in a desolate mining district in northern China’s Shanxi province. A Chinese road movie, Walking on the Wild Side charts a young gang’s continuous flights from one kind of trouble to the next. Mirroring the stark and barren landscape, the film relays the grim story of these delinquents’ dreams of liberty and easy money. Played by nonprofessional actors who are real life troublemakers, the film offers a realism that is at once oppressive, cruel, and sympathetic.

Revive

Revive is one of five short films within the Jia Zhangke-produced omnibus film Where Has Time Gone? with contributions from each of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). In Jia’s segment, a Chinese couple in the ancient town of Pingyao attempts to breathe new life into their old love as they ponder having a second child. Pingyao, home to the film festival Jia has co-founded, is a highly picturesque UNESCO World Heritage Site, and Jia humorously plays with a very recent dilemma – the second child policy dates from only 2013 – in a setting itself forcibly revived from history.

Remembrance

Jia Zhangke’s short for Modern Weekly’s special tenth anniversary issue.

Our Ten Years

Throughout ten years of a key era in Chinese and Hong Kong history, a girl becomes fixated on a fellow commuter who she observes regularly. While the two never speak to one another, the girl captures her appearance and life changes during the years through various means such as photos and drawings.