炮打双灯 | Red Firecracker, Green Firecracker

Nie Bao played by Wu Gang is a poor painter who finds work in the house of the Cai family, whose wealth is built on the making of firecrackers. On her parents’ demise, Chun Zhi, the daughter, takes over the business. Raised as a man to effectively run the family business, Chun Zhi falls in love with Nie Bao, and faces for the first time, new sexual desires within her. However, their love is against all odds, and leads up to a dramatic end where Nie Bao is challenged to demonstrate his love for her in an explosive contest.

Directed by Ping He | Starring : Jing Ning, Gang Wu, Xiaorui Zhao, Yang Gao, Liang Zhao | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, San Sebastian Film Festival, Hawaii Film Festival

血色清晨 | Bloody Morning

This film captures the depressing everyday life in a small town where everyone knows a murder will happen. Fifth-generation woman director Li Shaohong has freely adapted the García Márquez novel Chronicle of a Death Foretold to produce a truly shocking account of the consequences of poverty and backwardness in a North China village. In her version, the victim of the all-too-preventable killing is not a wealthy man but the village teacher, the only intellectual in a community of peasants. The build-up to the crime, explored in a web of flashbacks, turns out to hinge on the inner rage of a 36-year-old male virgin and on the puritanical stance of traditional village society; but what Li ultimately lays bare is the psyche of a people for whom existence means no more than survival.

Directed by Shaohong Li | Starring : Jun Zhao, Zhaohui Gong, Yajie Hu, Lu Hui, Lin Kong | Presented at Nantes Film Festival, Fribourg Film Festival, San Sebastian Film Festival