东宫西宫 | East Palace, West Palace

The most daring and achieved of all the ‘illegal’ independent films made in China in the ’90s – and quite probably the last, since it prompted the Film Bureau to formally outlaw unauthorised production and confiscate the directors Zhang Yuan’s passport. The street urinals of a public park in the Chinese capital have become the favoured meeting point for homosexuals. A Lan, a sensitive young writer, likes strolling in the park. During a police raid, he finds himself at headquarters suffering a ft by the book ” interrogation. The questioning of A Lan quickly transforms into an unexpected reminiscence of his tumultuous life: his childhood, parents, school, first sexual experience, obligatory state work in the countryside, and then, a slow drift into the quest for true love. These brief intimate glimpses of A Lan’s life blur the interrogating officer’s feelings for his prisoner. A strange love story unfolds.

Directed by Yuan Zhang | Starring : Si Han, Jun Hu, Jing Ye, Wei Zhao | Presented at Mar del Plata Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival, Singapore Film Festival, Warsaw Film Festival, Febio Film Festival

四十不惑 | Family Portrait

After laying bare backward village mentalities in Bloody Morning, Li Shaohong turns her attention to China’s urban middle class. Cao is a photographer, married to an opera singer and with an infant son, caught in the usual professional morass of political compromise. His life starts to fall apart when he learns that his ex-wife also bore him a son some months after their divorce – and when the boy turns up looking for his father. Nothing wildly dramatic, just believable people in believable situations. If the ending seems a touch forced, this is nevertheless a sign that ‘Fifth Generation’ cinema is changing and coming to terms with up-to-date realities.

Directed by Shaohong Li | Starring : Xuejian Li, Dandan Song, Jing Ye, Ding Ding, Guixiang Yang | Presented at Locarno Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, San Sebastian Film Festival