Sparkling Red Star

Cao Fei explores a virtual metropolis within the online platform Second Life. The work blends real and fictional elements of Chinese identity and urbanism to comment on capitalism and development in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Marxist iconography intersects with modern corporate structures, creating a dystopian yet whimsical reflection on 21st-century economic realities.

During the period of Culture Revolution in 1960s and 1970s in China, a disable old man wanted to use his handicraft, a snuff bottle with inside painting, for the exchange of “Grain Coupon” from a soldier. The soldier promised to give more coupons if the old man can forge a precious stamp. The old man had to do it, however, he failed and fell out with the soldier. At the end, the old man got grain in another way.

China, in the early sixties: an angry mob is persecuting a rich landowner. Mei, a young worker, who is part of the crowd. Suddenly she recognizes the victim who she secretly loves. Frightened of revealing her feelings, Mei doesn't know what to do.

An artist looks back on his younger years at the Chongqing Art Academy in the turbulent 1990s. The selection and demands used to be killing. He was close friends with two boys and a girl. They fought with local youngsters and tried to give each other pep talks. Parallels with the childhood years of his parents, during the Cultural Revolution, also show violence and gun battles. Semi-autobiographical, with motion capture.

Spring 1976, 5-year-old Swallow is abandoned at a public boarding preschool in central Beijing. When the persimmons are ripe, Swallow masters how to cry, but doesn't forget how to fly.

Ming Wang is an impoverished Chinese prodigy who flees Communist China to become a pioneering eye surgeon in America. When tasked with restoring the sight of an orphan in India, who was blinded by her stepmother, Wang must confront the trauma of living through the violent uprising in his youth, the Cultural Revolution.

The friendship between two children is threatened by their parents’ differences. Malú is from a family that was upper-class before the Revolution and remains well-to-do through remittances from relatives overseas, and her single mother (Larisa Vega Alamar) does not want her to play with Jorgito, as she thinks his background coarse and commonplace. Jorgito’s mother (Luisa María Jiménez Rodríguez),

A flying saucer hidden in a Red Chinese peasant village is sought by teams from the United States and U.S.S.R. On finding it, they band together to explore the saucer and take a trip into space.

Life begins with a dream. When it is fulfilled, there is some hope in the end. In between there is seldom anything more important than love. This is a documentary about the German-Chinese photographer and filmmaker Eva Siao (*1911) who grew up in a Jewish family in Wroclaw and later married the Chinese revolutionary poet Emi Siao. Her life story reflects the moving history of the 20th century. Her work gives an undisguised, direct impression of China before and during the Cultural Revolution.

In an epic tale of theater, gender, love and class, two Beijing opera actors navigate political turmoil as their friendship evolves over decades.

An American Merchant Marine captain, rescued from a Chinese Communist jail by local villagers, is "shanghaied" into transporting the entire village to Hong Kong on an ancient paddle steamer.

During the Cultural Revolution, two young men are sent to a remote mining village where they fall in love with the local tailor's beautiful granddaughter and discover a suitcase full of forbidden Western novels.

A REVOLUCIÓN (É) PROBABLE

In 1913 Beijing, three fierce women—disguised rebel Tsao Wan, jewel-seeking Sheung Hung, and opera heiress Pai Niu—embark on a daring quest filled with intrigue and betrayal, challenging societal norms amidst political turmoil and the vibrant world of Peking Opera.

Born underground, on the heels of the Civil Rights Movement and the Stonewall Riots, disco’s nascent popularity saw the spectacular takeover of the dancefloor, the airwaves and burgeoning fashion trends that reflected the joy and freedom inherent to the genre. Co-opted and exploited through references like John Travolta’s strut and shiny Swedish tracksuits, disco eventually reaches the mainstream, losing its original flair and purpose rooted in radical politics and social change.

In 1946, Heidi is entrusted to a Swiss family by her father. He will never come back for her. Today, François Yang questions his mother about her past. What follows is a journey to China, a quest to reconstruct memory. Through contact with her brothers and sister, Heidi measures the extent of the drama experienced by her family that remained in China, persecuted by the Communist Party.

1975 on the south west border of China

After the cultural revolution

With World War II looming, a prominent family in China must confront the contrasting ideas of traditionalism, communism and Western thinking, while dealing with the most important ideal of all: love and its meaning in society.

The world was in a cold war in the late 1960s and early 1970s. After the Sino-Soviet Treasure Island conflict, Beijing teenager Qi Weizhi evacuated with his mother to Hanzhong City in the hinterland of the Qinling Mountains, and experienced a pure juvenile sexual maturity out of touch with the political atmosphere of that era. Hanzhong was China's third-tier town during the Cold War. Mother Qi Xiuxuan deliberately concealed her husband's death because of her husband's emotional betrayal, and was quite indifferent to her son. Qi Weizhi's missing mother's love was rewarded by class teacher Zhou Wenyao, so he had a subtle affection for Zhou Wenyao.