有种 | Beijing Flickers

Beijing is happening these days, but not everyone is living the golden life. Dumped, fired, evicted and abandoned by everyone (including his dog), a down-on-his-luck man finds solace with a circle of equally ill-fated friends, in this touching and lighthearted drama from independent Chinese auteur Zhang Yuan.

Directed by Yuan Zhang | Starring : Zinuo Wang, Xiaofeng Li, Yulai Lu, Bowen Duan, Wenwen Han | Presented at Toronto Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival, Miami Film Festival

记忆望着我 | Memories Look at Me

Song Fang is the protagonist in her own soberly filmed docudrama, in which she returns from Beijing to the house of her parents in Nanjing. The film is largely set indoors, where Song shares everyday life and many memories with her parents, sister-in-law, brother and niece. Song is always on screen as they talk about relatives living and dead, about more or less successful careers, about old friends, illnesses and accidents, funerals and weddings. A young niece, Diandian, makes disarming comments that provide a lighter note. Between the conversations – that often take place around food – and rare excursions, we catch a glimpse of changing Chinese society. It is obvious that the norms and values of the older generation are being devalued, but that some deep-rooted traditions will probably continue for a very long time.

Directed by Fang Song | Starring : Yu-zhu Ye, Di-jing Song, Fang Song, Song Yuan | Presented at Locarno Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Mar del Plata Film Festival, Entrevues Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Portland Film Festival, San Francisco Film Festival

浮城谜事 | Mystery

Lu Jie has no idea her husband Yongzhao is leading a double life, until the day she sees him entering a hotel with a young woman. Her world crumbles – and it’s just the beginning. A few hours later, the young woman dies beneath the wheels of a car. The police officer in charge of the case refuses to believe her death was accidental.

Directed by Ye Lou | Starring : Hao Qin, Lei Hao, Xi Qi, Ying Qu, Yawen Zhu | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Sao Paulo Film Festival

我还有话要说 | When Night Falls

Inspired by the notorious case of a young man’s 2008 murder of six Shanghai police officers, the remarkable new film from independent Chinese auteur Ying Liang focuses on the killer’s mother, as she both struggles to comprehend her son’s heinous act and is persecuted by a state that willfully ignores its own laws.

Directed by Liang Ying | Starring : An Nai, Kate Wen, Ming Sun | Presented at Jeonju Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Warsaw Film Festival, Cinemanila Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival

夺命金 | Life Without Principle

Life Without Principle tells the story of three characters: an ordinary bank teller turned financial analyst is forced to sell high risk securities to her customers in order to meet her sales target; a small-time thug delves into the futures index hoping to earn easy money to post bail for a buddy in trouble with the law; a straight-arrow Police inspector, who has always enjoyed his middle income lifestyle, is suddenly desperate for money when his wife puts a down payment on a luxury flat she can’t afford and his dying father wants him to look after a young half-sister he never knew he had.

Directed by Johnnie To | Starring : Ching Wan Lau, Richie Ren, Denise Ho, Myolie Wu, Hoi-Pang Lo | Presented at Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, San Sebastian Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival, Mar del Plata Film Festival, Wisconsin Film Festival, San Francisco Film Festival, Edinburgh Film Festival, Changchun Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival

桃姐 | A Simple Life

Based on a true story, the film centres on Ah Tao, an amah who has worked for the Leung family for four generations. She lives with and takes care of Roger, a film producer who is the only member of the Leung household still living in Hong Kong. Roger returns home one day and finds Ah Tao unconscious after a stroke. Convinced she has becoming a burden, Tao resigns and moves into a retirement home. But upon her arrival, she continues to be taken care of by Roger, who realizes just how important she is to him. He decides to do his best to watch after the person who has nurtured him all his life. But Ah Tao’s health is fast deteriorating. Hui has always excelled when telling stories of everyday life. In A Simple Life, she delivers a rich and heartwarming drama that not only deals with the many abandoned old people in Hong Kong, but also exquisitely captures the unique relationship between the amah and the family for which she cares. In an age when loyalty between employers and employees is fast disappearing, A Simple Life highlights a culture that has almost ceased to exist in Hong Kong: one in which a person devotes their life to serving a family, and in return is cherished as much as any other relative.

Directed by Ann Hui | Starring : Andy Lau, Deannie Yip, Hailu Qin, Fuli Wang, Paul Chun | Presented at Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, London Film Festival, Stockholm Film Festival, Dubai Film Festival, Palm Springs Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Okinawa Film Festival, Durban Film Festival, Istanbul Film Festival, Sydney Film Festival, Munich Film Festival, Portland Film Festival

賽德克·巴萊 | Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale

Set in 1930’s Formosa – now Taiwan – Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale tells the true story of the Wushe Incident in which aboriginal Seediq tribe warrior Mouna Rudo led his people to rebel against the Japanese occupation. Rudo’s men of 300 fought with ancient gun, spears and minimal weaponry and seeking to reclaim their land, their dignity and their honor, they took on the Japanese army of 3000 for two weeks.

Directed by Te-Sheng Wei | Starring : Ching-Tai Lin, Umin Boya, Masanobu Andô, Vivian Hsu, Mei-Ling Lo | Presented at Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Dubai Film Festival

Hello！树先生 | Mr. Tree

Shu, a bachelor, is an unreliable worker in his village’s motor-repair shop. He tends to stay silent, like a forgotten tree in the wilderness. When the villagers are forced to evacuate due to the expansion of the local mining activities, Shu goes to the provincial capital to ask his friend for a job in a tutorial school. There, Shu falls in love at first sight with Xiaomei, a deaf-mute girl. On the night before their wedding, Shu’s dead father, his elder brother and his elder brother’s murderer appear in his dreams. The wedding is a disaster, and Xiaomei leaves to rejoin her mother. The worries and intuitions that have long flashed through Shu’s mind start to make sense to him. He begins to make prophecies, and many of them come true.

Directed by Jie Han | Starring : Baoqiang Wang, Zhuo Tan, Jie He, Bo Liu, Jing An | Presented at Locarno Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, London Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival

观音山 | Buddha Mountain

Three 20-something buddies drift like free-spirits through Chengdu, Sichuan: Nan Feng, a gorgeous and fearlessly feisty bar singer, and her two admirers, bike delivery guy Ding Bo and roly-poly Fei Zao. When Nan Feng accidentally assaults a well-connected bar patron, the three need to find not only compensation money but also a new place to live. They find the apartment of Chang Yueqin, a retired but agelessly elegant Beijing opera performer. Life styles and generations clash: Yueqin tries to impose discipline on the youths, and they in turn mock her old-fashioned harshness. When their reckless violation of her privacy exposes Yueqin’s hidden sorrows, the four learn to accommodate their differences, then how to offer emotional and ultimately spiritual support.

Directed by Yu Li | Starring : Bingbing Fan, Sylvia Chang, Bo-lin Chen, Yue Guan, Li Fang | Presented at Tokyo Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival, Cleveland Film Festival

寒假 | Winter Vacation

An ordinary village in Northern China, the last day of the winter vacation. Four idle, aimless adolescents gather at Zhou Zhixin’s home, a friend who lives with his father, brother and nephew. Like most contemporary teenagers, these youths want to enjoy their last day of holiday and simply hang out in this place where nothing ever seems likely to happen. Their conversations are desultory and they sometimes seem to argue for argument’s sake. One of them, Laowu, talks frankly with his girlfriend about how teenage love might affect their studies, while Laobao questions school’s value and relevance to real life.

Directed by Hongqi Li | Starring : Jinfeng Bai, Lei Bao, Hui Wang, Ying Xie, Naqi Zhang | Presented at Locarno Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, London Film Festival, Mar del Plata Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Wisconsin Film Festival, Melbourne Film Festival, San Sebastian Film Festival

脸 | Face

A Taiwanese filmmaker makes a film based on the myth of Salomé at the Louvre. Even though he speaks neither French nor English, he insists on giving the part of King Herod to the French actor Jean-Pierre Léaud. To give the film a chance at the box-office, the production company gives the role of Salomé to a world famous model. But problems arise as soon as filming begins… Amidst all this confusion, the director suddenly learns of his mother’s death. The producer flies to Taipei, to attend the funeral. The director falls into a deep sleep where his mother’s spirit does not seem to want to leave her old apartment. The producer has no choice but to wait, alone and lost in a strange city. As after a very long voyage, filming will resume with all who were lost in the underground of the Louvre.

Directed by Ming-liang Tsai | Starring : Kang-sheng Lee, Fanny Ardant, Yi-Ching Lu, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Laetitia Casta | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Göteborg Film Festival, Buenos Aires Film Festival, Transilvania Film Festival

天水围的夜与雾 | Night and Fog

Ann Hui’s darkly realistic Night and Fog starts at the end of the story: a man murders his wife and, based on statements by unreliable witnesses, the film goes on to investigate how things could have got this far and what kind of man was able to kill his family; questions that almost inevitably remain unanswered. Night and Fog, named after Nuit et brouillard (1955), Alain Resnais’ documentary about concentration camps, looks at the difficult problem of domestic violence. An elderly man from Hong Kong takes a wife from outside the city and goes on to neglect and abuse the woman. Ann Hui’s cool registering camera is juxtaposed with flashbacks within flashbacks and dream sequences, just as in her earlier film, Song of the Exile.

Directed by Ann Hui | Starring : Jingchu Zhang, Simon Yam, Wai Keung Law, Amy Chum, Kenneth Cheung | Presented at Hong Kong Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival, Tokyo Film Festival, Göteborg Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Transilvania Film Festival

荡寇 | Plastic City

Liberdade, São Paulo– a multi-ethnic neighborhood with the largest Japanese immigrant community in the world. Here, traditional Japanese achitecture clashes with the gritty urban landscapes, while people of all races come here to do business – legal or illegal. This is where the story of Plastic City begins… Yuda, a feared Chinese outlaw, and his adopted son Kirin, an impulsive young dreamer, together rule the pirated goods racket in the ultra-liberal Brazilian metropolis. The magnate and his heir control all of from rival gangs to street hawkers, corrupt politicians to erotic dancers. But an empire that takes years to build can also crumble to the ground with one fatal mistake… A conspiracy between politicians and the mafia begins to threaten Yuda’s power. Little by little, he loses control of his business and is ultimately arrested. Kirin struggles to re-conquer his father’s honor, fighting this city’s wars singlehandedly. But Yuda, tired of the bloodshed and feeling the weight of his years, abandons his son, falsifies his own death and returns to the jungle in a last attempt to put an end to his criminal life. Escaping from a complex maze of violence, Kirin sets out to find his father. In the mysterious jungle, father and son both have to wipe the slate of their past clean. Only in the end will Kirin discover the ultimate answer to the search for his own destiny.

Directed by Nelson Yu Lik-wai | Starring : Jô Odagiri, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Yi Huang, Chao-jung Chen, Tainá Müller | Presented at Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, AFI Film Festival, Stockholm Film Festival, Febio Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, Sao Paulo Film Festival

金碧辉煌 | Fujian Blue

“The whole world fears Fujian!” announces a TV pundit, commenting on the notoriety of China’s southeastern province as the country’s center for illegal emigration and human trafficking. Shot on location in Fujian’s coastal towns and on Pingtan Island in the Taiwan Strait, with a cast of non-professionals playing characters very much like themselves, Robin Weng’s pin-sharp debut feature reveals why and how so many young Chinese pay to have themselves smuggled in containers to the West.

Directed by Weng Shou Ming | Starring : Liu Haochen, Jin Luo, Chen Shu, Lin Yile, Wang Yinan | Presented at Vancouver Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Buenos Aires Film Festival, Stockholm Film Festival, Nantes Film Festival

帮帮我，爱神 | Help Me Eros

Ah Jie lost everything in the stock market due to a severe economic crisis. He now spends his days in his sealed apartment, smoking joints and looking after the marijuana plants that he secretly grows in his wardrobe. In desperation, he calls a suicide helpline and gets to know Chyi, whose sweet and gentle voice causes him to fall in love with his fantasized image of her. He tries to ask her out but is repeatedly rejected. He begins projecting his fantasy of Chyi on Shin, the new girl working at the betel nut stall downstairs. Shin is always sexily dressed in order to lure male customers. He becomes closer to her and soon the two of them sink into a world of erotic and psychedelic pleasures. At the same time, Ah Jie begins to stalk Chyi.

Directed by Kang-sheng Lee | Starring : Kang-sheng Lee, Ivy Yi, Jane Liao, Dennis Nieh | Presented at Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Reykjavik Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Sao Paulo Film Festival, Gijón Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Buenos Aires Film Festival, Gindou Film Festival

色，戒 | Lust, Caution

Shanghai, 1942. The World War II Japanese occupation of this Chinese city continues in force. Mrs. Mak, a woman of sophistication and means, walks into a café, places a call, and then sits and waits. She remembers how her story began several years earlier, in 1938 China. She is not in fact Mrs. Mak, but shy Wong Chia Chi. With WWII underway, Wong has been left behind by her father, who has escaped to England. As a freshman at university, she meets fellow student Kuang Yu Min. Kuang has started a drama society to shore up patriotism. As the theater troupe’s new leading lady, Wong realizes that she has found her calling, able to move and inspire audiences and Kuang. He convenes a core group of students to carry out a radical and ambitious plan to assassinate a top Japanese collaborator, Mr. Yee. Each student has a part to play; Wong will be Mrs. Mak, who will gain Yees’ trust by befriending his wife and then draw the man into an affair. Wong transforms herself utterly inside and out, and the scenario proceeds as scripted until an unexpectedly fatal twist spurs her to flee. Shanghai, 1941. With no end in sight for the occupation, Wong having emigrated from Hong Kong goes through the motions of her existence. Much to her surprise, Kuang re-enters her life. Now part of the organized resistance, he enlists her to again become Mrs. Mak in a revival of the plot to kill Yee, who as head of the collaborationist secret service has become even more a key part of the puppet government. As Wong reprises her earlier role, and is drawn ever closer to her dangerous prey, she finds her very identity being pushed to the limit…

Directed by Ang Lee | Starring : Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Wei Tang, Joan Chen, Leehom Wang, Chung-Hua Tou | Presented at Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Calgary Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Edmonton Film Festival, London Film Festival, Vienna Film Festival, Sao Paulo Film Festival, Valladolid Film Festival, Oslo Film Festival, Göteborg Film Festival

夜车 | Night Train

What threatens to be a fairly inconspicuous oddball drama, opening as it does with unsmiling court bailiff Wu Hongyan traveling to an out-of-town singles dance which ends in a predictably uncomfortable fashion, soon turns in to a rather nasty game of sexual cat-and-mouse as she falls in lust with the husband of one of the women she has had to help detain. Having flown under the radar of Chinese censors, it’s a slow and often painful film about a woman in search of love and affection in all the wrong places. Be warned: just as you think you’re on the home straight, Yinan inserts a repulsive, near-unwatchable scene of a carthorse being flayed to (what looks like) death; a cruelly over-egged metaphor if there ever was one.

Directed by Yi’nan Diao | Starring : Dan Liu, Liang Qi, Zhengjia Wang, Yongsheng Li, Halyan Meng | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Athens Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Warsaw Film Festival, London Film Festival, Buenos Aires Film Festival

落叶归根 | Getting Home

Zhao is an ageing worker who toils away in Shenzen in order to earn a living. When his friend and colleague Wang suddenly dies, Zhao decides to transport his body back to his native town. He purchases two tickets for the cross-country bus, and pretends that his silent travelling companion has drunk so much alcohol that he has fallen unconscious. Shortly afterwards, the bus is attacked by armed bandits. Zhao asks the bandits to kill him first, so that he can stay with his dead friend forever. Touched by this display of loyalty, the robbers decide to let the bus go. But instead of thanking Zhao, the other passengers throw him and his dead friend off the bus. Pretending that his friend is seriously ill and must be taken to hospital immediately, Zhao tries to flag down passing cars. After spending the night in a hotel, Zhao discovers that all his money has been stolen and begins to lose heart. But he refuses to be browbeaten. Whenever he needs money, he rearranges Wong so that he looks like a beggar. And whenever he is hungry, he joins a funeral party and bawls his eyes out so that he can enjoy the food served at the wake. During his odyssey across China Zhao is obliged to get along with all kinds of people. Just before he reaches his destination, the old man and his dead friend are caught in a torrential downpour, so that now Zhao finds himself engaged in a struggle against nature.

Directed by Yang Zhang | Starring : Benshan Zhao, Dandan Song, Degang Guo, Haiying Sun, Ma Wu | Presented at Berlin Film Festival, Bangkok Film Festival, Cinemanila Film Festival, Vladivostok Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, St. Louis Film Festival, Kerala Film Festival, Wisconsin Film Festival, Edmonton Film Festival

黑眼圈 | I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone

Forest fires burn in Sumatra; a smoke covers Kuala Lumpur. Grifters beat an immigrant day laborer and leave him on the streets. Rawang, a young man, finds him, carries him home, cares for him, and sleeps next to him. In a loft above lives a waitress. She sometimes provides care and attention. More violence seems a constant possibility. They find another man abandoned on the street, paralyzed. They carry him. While no one speaks to each other, sounds dominate: coughing, cooking, coupling, opening bags; music and news reports on a radio, the rattle and buzz of a restaurant. It’s dark in the city at night. We see down hallways, through doors, down alleys. Who sleeps with whom?

Directed by Ming-liang Tsai | Starring : Kang-sheng Lee, Shiang-chyi Chen, Norman Atun, Pearlly Chu, Azman Hassan | Presented at Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival, Sao Paulo Film Festival, London Film Festival, Thessaloniki Film Festival, Nantes Film Festival, Mar del Plata Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Rio de Janeiro Film Festival

今天的鱼怎么样？ | How Is Your Fish Today?

How Is Your Fish Today? tells the story of a famous screenwriter whose film scripts have all been rejected by Chinese censors. He writes a script about a man named Lin Hao for his producer, who expects it to be a Chinese version of The Fugitive. Upon reading Rao’s arthouse script, the producer rejects it as the worst screenplay he has ever read. Rao is infuriated with the response and kills Lin’s wife. Lin finds out while cheating on his wife and immediately sends Rao a thank you note. Rao is upset that Lin did not get adequately infuriated and kills all of Lin’s dogs. Lin then calls in three Nazis he knew from back in the day to poop all over Rao’s lawn. Rao is discouraged and now sees his mistake. However, Rao does not abandon his story, instead he rewrites it. Rao begins to live through his main character, Lin Hao, as he writes about him fleeing his home on a journey of self-discovery. Hao makes his way to Mohe, as does Rao, and the writer enters his own narrative. Both characters, in a struggle for freedom, have left their homes behind, but while Lin Hao is running away, Hui Rao is searching for something.

Directed by Xiaolu Guo | Starring : Xiaolu Guo, Ning Hao, Hui Rao, Zijiang Yang | Presented at Edinburgh Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Fribourg Film Festival, San Francisco Film Festival, Seattle Film Festival, Karlovy Vary Film Festival, New Zealand Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Vienna Film Festival

少年花草黄 | Whitered in a Blooming Season

Brotherly love goes too far when Feng gets his twin sister pregnant while both of them are still in high school, creating a problem that’s bigger than both of them. Convincing his gay friend Le Le to take the blame seems like the best option. But engineering a relationship between his pregnant sister and a boy who admittedly likes other boys produces some very unexpected results.

Directed by Zi’en Cui | Starring : Guifeng Wang, Jiao Le, Alex Shiyue, Xianqwen, Renan Wang | Presented at Vancouver Film Festival

星星相吸惜 | Star Appeal

Chinese filmmaker Cui Zi’en directs this gay-themed sci-fi drama about Xiao Bo, a bisexual man who discovers a stranger by the roadside, naked and claiming to be from Mars. Xiao Bo takes the Martian home to his live-in boyfriend and girlfriend, and together, they begin instructing him in the ways of earthlings. But when the mysterious stranger lapses into a coma, only the discovery of true love can bring him around.

Directed by Zi’en Cui | Starring : Bo Yu, Guifeng Wang, Jian Hou, Xiwen Zhang, Weiming Wang | Presented at Vancouver Film Festival

艳光四射歌舞团 | Splendid Float

Roy is a Taoist priest but also a drag queen performer. He meets and falls for Sunny but when Sunny disappears without saying goodbye, Roy begins to suspect that something terrible has happened.

Directed by Zero Chou | Starring : Yuming Chen, Ching Chungyi, Ang Mayi, Wangming Zhang, Yuqi Lai | Presented at Vancouver Film Festival, Febio Film Festival

可可西里 | Mountain Patrol

Kekexili is based on actual events. From Mainland China, the film tells the story of Ga Yu, a reporter from Beijing who in 1996 travels to the eponymous region on the border of Tibet, where some local men have organized a civilian patrol to fight the poachers who are decimating the region’s endangered population of Tibetan antelopes, prized for their pelts, which are then exported, to be sold as (once trendy) shahtoosh shawls. As Ga Yu arrives in a remote town, a member of the patrol has recently been coldly executed by the poachers, and the taciturn leader, Ritai, is heading out on another patrol, determined to find those responsible. Ga Yu convinces Ritai to let him tag along by suggesting that a story in a Beijing newspaper might spur the Chinese government to take more forceful action to protect the antelopes. The group leaves on their perilous, high altitude journey. From the film’s opening, with the aforementioned murder, it’s a harrowing trip. Kekexili captures the deprivation and danger of this harsh land, and the necessary ruggedness of the people who live there, with impeccable clarity. Filmmaker Lu tells his story visually, for the most part, with exemplary economy. He doesn’t spend any more time than needed on characterization. He leaves it to his audience to figure out what motivates Ritai and his team to risk their lives in order to protect the animals. Whatever it is, it’s clear that it goes beyond a mere concern for the environment. Ritai ends up completely possessed with finding the gunmen who slaughtered the most recent herd of antelope. He puts his own and many other lives at risk in this pursuit. At the film’s midpoint, Ritai and his men capture a group of poachers, including a kindly old man who tells the patrolmen that he used to be a shepherd, and was pushed into a life of criminality by hard times. The filmmaker doesn’t judge these characters, any more than he does the film’s would-be heroes. It’s clear that on a thematic level, Lu’s primary interest is human, rather than environmental.

Directed by Chuan Lu | Starring : Duobuji, Lei Chang, Liang Qi, Xueying Zhao, Zhanlin Ma | Presented at Tokyo Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Seattle Film Festival, Cinemanila Film Festival, Montréal Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Warsaw Film Festival, Marrakech Film Festival, Kerala Film Festival

电影往事 | Electric Shadows

It was a golden age of movies, like to watch movies want to be a movie actor female announcer Jiang Xuehua (Jiang Hongbo ornaments) unwed gave birth to a daughter like watching the same movie Lingling. This kind of elementary school understand the bad boy Mao Xiaobing Mao Xiaobing frame magic telescope, the telescope can see any want to see the movie, two people become good friends because of the movie, when Mao Xiaobing go gave the telescope the Ling-Ling Chiang. Later, the same is the movie lasting bonds, Jiang Xuehua and movie projectionist Pan Daren married soon gave birth to a son Bingbing, Lingling feeling by the threat to their own position in the home. Later, an accident, and Lingling climbed the roof watching movies brother accidentally fall killed the father of a slap in the face for Lingling runaways. Mao Xiaobing has long become Maotai Bing (Xia Yu ornaments), makes him an unexpected encounter Lingling almost deaf, mentally unstable, thus opening a dusty past.

Directed by Jiang Xiao | Starring : Yu Xia, Yihong Jiang, Zhengjia Wang, Shan Jiang, Haibin Li | Presented at Toronto Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Marrakech Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival

不见 | The Missing

Two stories are intercut: In one, an old woman searches frantically for her missing grandson; in the other, a teenage boy’s grandfather disappears. Lee Kang-sheng’s The Missing is a sad and haunting film which builds very slowly to an obscure symbolic ending, making you want to watch it again right away in order to view it in a different light. While not quite living up to the standard of the best work of Lee’s esteemed mentor Tsai Ming-liang, The Missing is an admirable debut. The city of Taipei becomes an alienating dystopia in this minimalist directorial debut from Taiwanese actor Lee Kang-sheng. A grandmother loses her grandson in a park and spends the remainder of the day searching for him. Meanwhile, a troubled teenager’s grandfather similarly disappears. The two searchers wander the city until, eventually, their paths cross. The Missing shared the New Currents award with the Iranian film Tiny Snowflakes at the 2003 Pusan International Film Festival.

Directed by Kang-sheng Lee | Starring : Yi-Ching Lu, Tien Miao, Chang Chea, Chun Shih, Shiang-chyi Chen | Presented at Pusan Film Festival, Tokyo Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Athens Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Flanders Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, Vienna Film Festival, Ljubljana Film Festival, Nantes Film Festival, Bratislava Film Festival, Febio Film Festival

制服 | Uniform

Economic unrest roils central China’s Shaanxi Province: local factories are merging, thugs threaten managers, personnel records get lost, and workers are without protections such as health insurance. The police and much of society are surly. Xiao Jian, a mild young man whose father is ill, works in the family street stall doing pressing and tailoring. A laundered police-officer’s shirt goes uncollected, and Xiao Jian puts it on: it opens doors. Wearing it, he chats up a clerk, Zheng Shasha, and takes her out. He extracts fines from drivers who violate traffic laws. In these tough times, he’s not the only one with two identities.

Directed by Yi’nan Diao | Starring : Kai Han, Hongli Liang, Hua Qin, Xueqiong Zeng | Presented at Vancouver Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Philadelphia Film Festival, London Film Festival

哎呀呀，去哺乳 | Feeding Boys, Ayaya

Director Zi’en Cui’s drama provides a stark look at male prostitution in China. The film centers on Dabin, a Christian evangelist determined to reform every hustler on the streets, especially his little brother, Xiao, who runs off after an argument with Dabin. While searching for his brother, Dabin tries to convert many young hustlers, but he also gains a broader understanding of why so many boys resort to prostitution. Ge Jia and Jian Hu star.

Directed by Zi’en Cui | Starring : Jian Hou, Bin Yu, Ge Jia, Jian Zhang, Xiwen Zhang | Presented at Vancouver Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival

不散 | Goodbye Dragon Inn

A Japanese tourist takes refuge from a rainstorm inside a once-popular movie theater, a decrepit old barn of a cinema that is screening a martial arts classic, King Hu’s 1966 “Dragon Inn.” Even with the rain bucketing down outside, it doesn’t pull much of an audience – and some of those who have turned up are less interested in the movie than in the possibility of meeting a stranger in the dark.

Directed by Ming-liang Tsai | Starring : Kang-sheng Lee, Shiang-chyi Chen, Kiyonobu Mitamura, Tien Miao, Chao-jung Chen | Presented at Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Vienna Film Festival, Tokyo Film Festival, London Film Festival, Hawaii Film Festival, Stockholm Film Festival, Oslo Film Festival, Nantes Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Febio Film Festival, Belgrade Film Festival, Wisconsin Film Festival, Buenos Aires Film Festival, Istanbul Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Singapore Film Festival, Munich Film Festival, La Rochelle Film Festival, Maine Film Festival

明日天涯 | All Tomorrow’s Parties

In a post-apocalyptic 21st century, Continental Asia lives under the rule of the political and religious sect Gui Dao, which blends Maoist rhetorics with Buddhist iconography… Zhuai and his younger brother Mian are arrested and deported to a camp called Prosperity for re-education. Survival in the camp means hunger, bureaucratic rules, degradation and humiliation. After the catastrophic fall of the sect, the guards of the camp escape, leaving the inmates “free”. Zhuai and Mian wander around before leaving the camp together with beautiful Xuelan and her baby. They find themselves in the desert wastelands of their post-war post-industrial world. They try to rediscover everyday life in a shabby apartment of an abandoned mining town. Are their dreams only of a virtual future?

Directed by Nelson Yu Lik-wai | Starring : Wei Wei Zhao, Yi’nan Diao, Yong-won Cho, Ren Na  | Presented at Cannes Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Sitges Film Festival, Entrevues Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Buenos Aires Film Festival, Hong Kong Film Festival, Warsaw Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival