最爱 | Til Death Do Us Part

The peacefulness of a rural village has been disrupted by an outbreak of a disease, which the locals call ‘a fever’. Villagers learn very quickly that there is no cure for the disease and refuse to have anything to do with the infected. Lao Zhuzhu is a teacher at the now-abandoned village school and the father of Zhao Qiquan, the blood merchant responsible for causing the outbreak. He decides to make amendments to the villagers on behalf of his unrepentant son by inviting all the infected villagers, including his younger son, Zhao Deyi, to live with him at the village school, where they will look after one another. One day, Shang Qinqin, donning a red jacket, arrives at the school compound to join the small community…

Directed by Changwei Gu | Starring : Ziyi Zhang, Aaron Kwok, Wenli Jiang, Zeru Tao, Cunxin Pu | Presented at Rome Film Festival

洗澡 | Shower

Shenzhen businessman, Da Ming, goes home to Beijing when he thinks his father has died. He finds his father hard at work at the family’s bathhouse (the false message was a ruse of Da’s mentally-handicapped, exuberant brother, Er Ming, to get Da home). Da stays a couple days, observing his father being social director, marriage counselor, and dispute mediator for his customers and a boon companion to Er. Da is caught between worlds: the decaying district of his childhood and the booming south where he now lives with a wife who’s not met his family. When Da realizes his father’s health is failing and the district is slated for razing, he must take stock of family and future.

Directed by Yang Zhang | Starring : Xu Zhu, Cunxin Pu, Wu Jiang, Ding Li, Bing He | Presented at Toronto Film Festival, San Sebastian Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Buenos Aires Film Festival, Seattle Film Festival, Changchun Film Festival, Calgary Film Festival, Jakarta Film Festival

爱情麻辣烫 | Spicy Love Soup

Spicy Love Soup starts with a young couple eating sweet (or sour) and spicy soup from a two-sided bowl shaped in a Yin and Yang pattern. Until the couple’s wedding at the end of the film, Spicy Love Soup intermittently shows six different episodes about different generations’ relationships. Love can be sweet, sour, or spicy. And, you’ll taste all those emotions from this contemporary Chinese film.

Directed by Yang Zhang | Starring : Jinglei Xu, Cunxin Pu, Yuanyuan Gao, Liping Lü, Tao Guo | Presented at Changchun Film Festival, Tokyo Film Festival, Hawaii Film Festival

邮差 | Postman

One of the most critically acclaimed films to have emerged from the “Sixth Generation,” Beijing-based He Jianjun’s Postman is a fascinating study of an introverted mailman who cannot resist the urge to open and read the letters he is entrusted to deliver. Emotionally detached from his coworkers and family members, Xiaodou becomes entangled in the lives of the people whose mail he opens in private. Initially inconsequential, these interventions become more critical when he discovers a secret affair between two gay junkies.

Directed by Jianjun He | Starring : Yuanzheng Feng, Danni Liang, Cunxin Pu, Tianwei Zheng, Xin Huang | Presented at Rotterdam Film Festival, Singapore Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival

蓝风筝 | The Blue Kite

Told from the perspective of a young boy, Tietou, this film traces the fate of a Beijing family and their neighbors as they experience the political and social upheavals in the 1950s and 1960s China.

Directed by Zhuangzhuang Tian | Starring : Liping Lü, Cunxin Pu, Xuejian Li, Xiaoying Song, Ping Zong | Presented at Toronto Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Tokyo Film Festival, Hawaii Film Festival

清凉寺的钟声 | Bell of Purity Temple

In 1945, Japan is defeated in its war of aggression against China. During a panic retreat, a baby boy is abandoned, but is adopted and grows up to become and eminent monk. Thirty years later, he visits China and meets his real mother who is now elderly and weak, but his love for Japan and his adopted mother drives him home.

Directed by Jin Xie | Starring : Cunxin Pu, Yi Ding, Komaki Kurihara, Yong You, Xu Zhu | Presented at N/A

最后的贵族 | The Last Aristocrats

Set in 1948. Three friends go to America to study. Whilst there one of the girls hears that her parents have died suddenly. She disappears, much to the anxiety of her friends. When she returns she is a broken and desolate young woman.

Directed by Jin Xie | Starring : Hong Pan, Cunxin Pu, Kechun Li, Xiong Xiao, Lisa Lu | Presented at N/A