Burial Rites become the mise-en scene in which politicians, the media, a monk and an infuriated neighbour vividly portray the aftermath of an accident.
Poet Wolf (Lang) chose to starve himself to death, in a beautiful flower blossoming Spring. This is a poetic, aesthetic and brutal film that adapted from the true stoy of Poet Wo Fu's suicide.
This short film shows a quest of two homosexual couples for understanding from the people in their surroundings, through meetings and exchanges on a square in the heart of Beijing.
Xingxi travels alone to Alor Setar, a town in Northern Malaysia. As a consequence of a blown tire, she experiences three variant adventures. She introduces herself to people using different identities with mysterious secrets. In return, what the journey brings her is thoroughly unexpected. In the first adventure, Brooke is a traveler; in the second adventure, Brooke is an anthropologist; in the third, Brooke is a divorcée. She is a disheartened woman who comes across a French writer named Pierre. The two lonely travelers become instant friends. Their age gap enables them to have their respective insights into life and death. Meanwhile, it is not until the enigmatic side of Alor Setar begins to unfold that Brooke tells Pierre the true reason why she has come. They seek to understand the interaction between love and life. As the story comes to an end, mother nature shows her beauty with the magical Blue Tears phenomenon on prominent display.
Hong Kong, at the height of the protests. A young woman visits her father, whom she has not seen for a while. Her plan is to have lunch with him before the Umbrella Movement reaches a critical juncture. Celebrated, committed filmmaker Ying Liang contributed with a beautiful moving short with an special angle asking: Where do we live, and what is citizenship?
After 30 years of cold war, Taiwan and China finally opened cross-strait trade and tourism in 1980. However, through decades of political and educational vilification of their counterparts by the KMT and CCP, and despite close economic and cultural ties, what lies beneath the diplomatic relations is a disconnect and mistrust that cannot be denied. KE is a failed business in Taiwan who hopes to start over as a 'Taiwanese Expat' in Shenzheng, China with a Taiwanese company. Lili, a laborer from China, meets her Taiwanese husband online and moves to Taiwan in hopes of a better life. Both KE and Lili cross the straits in hope of achieving what they cannot find in their homeland. But how much do they really know about that country across the straits?
If It’s Not Now, Then When? mostly takes place in an apartment inhabited by three members of a family (though never at the same time): mother Pearlly Chua (from Tsai Ming-liang’s I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone), daughter Tan Bee Hung and young son Kenny Gan. Their father seems recently to have died. The mother leaves early and returns late, out on long walks in the park with a lover whom the daughter and her best friend try to spy on. The daughter pecks away at a computer at work and has a desultory affair with her married boss, which he carries on between his business and family phone calls. And the son breaks into cars and “recycles” the electronics he finds.
Three scenes about three couples with each portraying maybe the turning point of their relationship. First scene, Lim & Amelia are a couple who had been together for almost five years. While he works as a salesman and trying to save up for marriage, the girl are not sure if he’s the one she wants to marry. One day he confronts her about a letter from her admirer. Second scene, Pete & Bernice are a couple who had been together almost ten years. They’re not married because he doesn’t believe in marriage. While she tags along, one day she might realizes this may not be the man she wants to end up with. Third scene, we see Amy & Lai are a pair of secret lovers. This maybe their last meeting or maybe not. They may had loved each other in the past they may not now in this scene. This is the third and final part of James Lee's Love Trilogy which takes offers a glimpse of the life of three lovers.
A 17 year old boy from a village in the Sechuan province leaves for the big city looking for his father, who left 6 years before and has not been heard of since. The fact that his mother still receives money his father does nothing to tame his anger. He his not looking for a warm reunion, it is unconcealed revenge that drives him. Totally lost, he roams the big city with his basket of ducks on his back...
Zhang Ming went back to his hometown Wushan to record the last images before it being changed forever by the upcoming Three Gorges Dam.
Fishermen couple Ah Shing and Mei-wah, having lived from boat to shore, stayed together for most of their lives. After their son grew up, they have different visions towards the rest of their days. Ah Shing insists on fishing amid the decline of the local fishing industry. Mei-wah works as a factory worker and wishes for a more stable life. Even when there are subtle and profound changes in their relationships due to the different views, their affections for each other never stopped and they still support each other. This story is based on the real-life experience of the director's parents, and they play their own character in the film.
China marks the beginning of the extensive Asian theme in Ottinger’s filmography and is her first travelogue. Her observant eye is interested in anything from Sichuan opera and the Beijing Film Studio to the production of candy and sounds of bicycle bells.
Filmed over three years on China’s railways, The Iron Ministry traces the vast interiors of a country on the move: flesh and metal, clangs and squeals, light and dark, and language and gesture. Scores of rail journeys come together into one, capturing the thrills and anxieties of social and technological transformation. The Iron Ministry immerses audiences in fleeting relationships and uneasy encounters between humans and machines on what will soon be the world’s largest railway network.
Coming back to her broken family, pregnant writer Huang Xiaoyu and her French husband, Benjamin, finds herself trapped between her cult brainwashed mother, Li Jiumei, and her secretly homosexual father, Huang Tao.
A desperate man, who is down and out, says that a group of people following him is trying to give the sleepy city a shot in the arm by planting a flower of idealism out of the ruins. And with the purpose of "if there's no enough vitality, use desperate strength to gather together", they begin to look for service/preaching targets. At the same time, there's an elder sister who has locked her younger brother in the home for a long time, the younger brother got the chance to the outside world accidentally however.
An orphan mutters his personal history in The Good Place. He is getting louder and louder because he doesn’t want his history to be locked in the small dark room forever just as his body has suffered. Little Bunny is who he says the most intimate person in his life. It turns out he and Little Bunny share the same history.
Geomancy is to say hinding winds to gain water. The earth is mother , burial brings peace to the deceased, symbolizing reincarnation. So the name of this story in English is “Revive”, which means getting into the cycle of reincarnation. The documentary is going to tell a story contains several elements such as Geomancy of compass, Hakka funeral and interment culture, General om teach, Seance. Moreover, it also porse deeply on the floating life with fleeting time- the sanguine life of a wise man in countryside. This is an old man whose life is full of hardships, he possesses real learning and stories, owns peace after overcoming severe difficulties, and has the special graciousness as being in such an age…
The relationship between two young men in Beijing becomes strained after one of them develops an unusual fetish.
The player of Jia Zhangke's early film "Xiao Wu" and the famous independent film activist Wang Hongwei talked about Chinese independent films at the IFF Independent Film Forum.
I just watch the news of war in a distant country on my mobile. My fingers go back day by day to the day the war broke out and pose to see comments posted on the Facebook News Feed that I follow. Outside, I have friends who participated in anti-war rallies.