Summary Of The Story:

Chen Chen, an extremely smart and driven Chinese girl receives full scholarship from a U.S. university and starts chasing her dream. Little does she know that she’d end up being an underground ghostwriter for school papers and exam...Within four years, she expands her “business” to a shocking scale and makes tons of money. Eager to grow up and prove herself, she goes too far and eventually loses control of her life...After paying great price for this, she chooses the right way in the end, and it’s never too late to start a life with a worthy cause.

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Director's Statement:

As someone who has studied and lived in the U.S. for almost a decade, I have witnessed the significant growing in the number of Chinese international students, and all kinds of social issues it brings about. Obviously, money isn’t the top concern to most Chinese students nowadays. The biggest trouble comes from the clash of the two different cultures and values. Chen Chen, the leading role in this film, is the epitome of this large group of overseas students. Like most young people in China, she’s extremely driven, competitive and smart. However, she gets way ahead of herself and has to pay great price for what she’s done...

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Summary Of The Story:

In a small town in the Gobi Desert of western China, Lao Zheng, who suffers from mid-life crisis and cancer, wants to prove himself and looks around for opportunities of “praising virtue and punishing vice.”
The poor high school student Liang Liang and his classmate Cai, who is from a rich family, makes an appointment for a soccer game because of a girl called Xiao Qin. Liang Liang wants to prove that kids from poor families could win the game through their own efforts!
An accident leads to a conflict between Lao Zheng and Liang Liang, but then they come to a deal. The football match somehow becomes their common goal, but the game then turns into a kidnapping incident. Finally, Lao Zheng makes a decision and sacrifices himself to save the children.

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Director's Statement:

Everything stems from the fact that after I entered middle age and fatherhood, my life in all aspects has changed, and I have become the “pillar” of my family.
However, I often felt lonely and helpless. During that time, I really wanted to write a story about mid-life crisis. So, in this story, I mixed the forces of mid-life crisis and adolescent incitement together to show that growth is not only about teenagers, but also about the so-called “adults,” who need to be concerned and encouraged as well.
Beyond the story, I also used the two leading characters Lao Zheng and Liang Liang to explore the philosophical proposition of “being towards death.” When we are alive, how to face death, which will finally come, and how to live well!

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Production company profile:

One More Film Ltd. is a new video group set up by some warm-blooded young people from Beijing Film Academy and Central Academy of Drama, with film production and advertising as main business.

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Summary Of The Story:

Mid-life crisis propels Mr. Shan to cheat on his girlfriend...with his estranged wife. A woman tries to break free from her “gilded cage,” but only dives deeper into it. An overweight teenage girl who is pressured into attending a “fat camp” stages her great escape. The three strangers cross paths in an historic three-day traffic jam, where they encounter the infamous magician who specializes in the “escape trick”... Will he help them escape from their predicaments?

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Director's Statement:

Happy Endings is a contemporary urban fable. Our three protagonists, although strangers to one another, inhabit the roles of father, mother, and daughter, each lost in their own identity in this family of strangers. While we enter the story through a small slice of each character’s life, as the film progresses, we gradually get a sense of the larger world in which they inhabit. What seems like a world that is lively and bustling is actually marked by loneliness and estrangement—not unlike the Internet era, where we are alone with everybody. The title of Happy Endings is, in fact, ironic: the destiny of our protagonists is anything but perfect; the ending to the story is far from living happily ever after, and life continues, despite all.

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Summary Of The Story:

While wandering alongside the bank of Yangtze River, Li Nian encounters a girl called Wan Xin. They soon start an ambiguous relationship, and spend the long dull holiday all together. However, Xin mysteriously vanishes after a group trip to the countryside. Nian runs into a boy called Wu Hao, who is in the same group for the trip. Unconsciously, Nian begins to stalk Hao for no reason. More details are unveiled; Nian believes Hao is the one who causes the missing. Just at the time when Nian is ready to take actions, the unexpected professing of affection from Hao makes Nian lose his ground. Nonetheless, he still tries to retain balance and dig out the truth...

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Director's Statement:

Brutal Summer intends to depict a dangerous yet attractive state hidden in adolescence. The protagonist, who is a teenage boy, drifts in the entanglement of desire, affection and morality. The mystery-loaded narrative structure reflects the constant exploration into the protagonist’s psychological grey areas. The seemingly idle daily life, is in fact surrounded by lurking perils. This film, by showing abrupt mysteries wrapped inside the peacefulness of life, unravels a strange view deep inside a boy’s heart.

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Summary Of The Story:

Reindeer, whose real name is Zhu Shaoyu, is a women’s human trafficker. Out of expectation, one day his own son Zhu Kai is trafficked from their hometown. To find and save his son, Reindeer lurks into the gang which abducted Zhu Kai. Meanwhile, Nanny Rat slips away with Zhu Kai, thinking of selling Zhu Kai on his own in order to pay his gambling debt, and leaves behind his girl friend who’s nine months pregnant. Li Qi soon becomes the enemy of the whole gang. So they trick Li Qi to sell her baby, and appoint Reindeer to take Li Qi to the trading city to give birth and sell the new baby. But all Reindeer is thinking about is how to draw forth Rat and save her son. Therefore, a crime with all kinds of human traffickers with their own axe to grind kicks off…

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Director's Statement:

A Touch of Warm is based on a true human trafficking case. The story is between a human trafficker who’s looking for his son, a pregnant woman who’s trafficked and is forced to give a premature birth, a child who’s trafficked several times and pushed into darkness, and a woman who’s trafficked once and is now doing trafficking business herself. The story put these complicated emotional relationships in a criminal and road film story. Based on the social reality and the survival predicament of the characters, the story intends more than to show the spectacle of the criminal world but to touch the most secret and soft place deep down in everyone’s heart. The story telling tends to portray characters and use the film language typical to its genre. The film is aimed at searching for the venation of reality and the tension of humanity and emotion within it.

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Summary Of The Story:

In the millennium year, two teenagers meet each other. From 2000 to 2003, from 10th grade to 12th grade, the southern town they live in, suffers from the national laid-off tide, is experiencing a difficult transition. Their parents lose their state jobs and turn to market economy. The teenagers are exploring, searching, and they grow up eventually. The “good student” A and the “bad student” B somehow become close friends. However, their friendship is faced with great pressure, and they gradually fall apart. Until the college entrance examination, an unexpected dramatic event completely changes their destiny. 14 years later, they finally find the truth of that accident.

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Director's Statement:

When I grew up into an adult, I suddenly discovered that the abyss of the youth was still staring at me. Those memories, the people I met, families, schools, and the larger world have created a picture in my heart. This picture is an entire special period, a time when we were living in the collective memory of a generation born after 1985—a painful but exceptionally precious and beautiful time. I look back at the abyss and the times from the end of the 1990s to the millennium, when the older generation and we were each being tampered by an invisible hand, and searched for the perplexing, struggling, mourned, and longed for feelings deep in our hearts.

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Production company profile:

Dadi Film is a leading film production company in China, which specializes in the planning, production and distribution of outstanding films. The films we produced have received a number of awards in international film festivals, including the Berlin Film Festival and Hong Kong Film Awards.

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Summary Of The Story:

Fan’s father loses his job unexpectedly. Fan’s mother finds it hard to escape from her old lover. Fan himself leaves home to start a totally different life after he finds out his mother’s secret. Apart from that, the barbers walk to the streets to drum up business. The owner of the barbecue restaurant tries to transform his restaurant to a nightclub. Also, Fan’s grandpa who’s playing chess with his ward mate in the hospital never starts his next move, and his ward mate just waits for the end of the day half asleep.

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Director's Statement:

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Production company profile:

Factory Gate Films is a film production company founded in 2017. With an emphasis on discovering and fostering new directors and talents, the company’s mission is to produce unique and high quality films for both Chinese and international audiences.

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Summary Of The Story:

Chou Hang, a 39-year old single man who owns a shabby little BBQ restaurant, recently received a notice from ‘Mars Zero’, a program of one-way migration to Mars. He was chosen to fly to Mars as an alternative volunteer because of the abandonment of another volunteer.
Before heading out for the final training in Houston, Chou plans a farewell party with five of his best friends, who are also his creditors for the BBQ shop.
However, things start to go south when Chou think he can finally get rid of the ordinary life. His best friends chase him for his debts; his father becomes seriously ill; his lovers from the past and the present quarrel with him; an unexpected competitor tries to murder him to get his position on the Mars mission… Why must Chou go to Mars? Will he finally make it?

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Director's Statement:

The story was developed based on the real life of the writers. It is considered as an analysis and summary of the inner world of the director and the creative team.
The film is an autobiographical story of a day dreamer who is unwilling to grow up, as well as a sketch of the middle-aged small town people’s lives. The story has a light touch of science fiction with comedy as its main tone. It is composed of eight main scenes, while interweaves the reality of the small town with the fantasy world of wild Mars. Through a series of dramatic conflicts between the man going to Mars and his parents, friends, lovers, competitors, and the media, the story reveals the spiritual world of a day dreamer, discusses the writers’ viewpoint on dream, faith and love from different angles.

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Production company profile:

Arc Light Production is a young but vibrant film production company founded by several young filmmakers who are sick of the ordinary in-house life. We want to create something fresh yet with personality and support other filmmakers who want to make a difference in this crazy chaotic world.

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Summary Of The Story:

Xiao Qing is a gardener who is about to turn eighteen; he causes a serious car accident that kills a family of three, thereby facing criminal penalties and huge compensation. The underprivileged family of Xiao Qing has been backed to the corner by the escalating situation, yet the composure and silence shown by him enrages his parents. In fact, all that Xiao Qing has been waiting for is the blossom of King's Blood, the tulip he grew with all his heart.

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Director's Statement:

The death of Xiao Qing is not a suicide by conventional standards.
We could see Xiao Qing as a poet. A poet’s suicide always has different reasons but the same internal causes——they make their own choices after realizing what the world truly is. Gu Cheng once writes in his poem: "Man can be born like an ant, but be glorious as God." Xiao Qing may not read this poem, but he unconsciously chose the latter. The suicide is not pessimistic, compelled or evasive. On the other hand, suicide is making a choice between freedom and reality. You will not fear the dark if light is in your heart. Death is another form of freedom.

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Summary Of The Story:

A father and a son live together at a portal town in Taiwan. Although they can’t be more familiar with each other, they look like strangers. The father is divorced. He brings women home for one night stand. The son has to wash these women’s underwear; this makes him feel uncomfortable. The father however still sees his ex-wife - the son’s mother. The son cannot forgive his mother because she’s married to someone else. The mother gives the father some money and asks him to give it to the son, because the son wants to go abroad, but the father spends it all.
The father and the son’s lives are broken, and their future is full of uncertainties. They are mirror reflections of one another. One day, this unsuccessful pair rides a stolen bicycle together. By accident, they discover some family photos, which reveal the bitter-sweet sides of life.

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Director's Statement:

This film is the director’s semi-autobiography. In this “family of males,” a father and a son live together, although they feel like strangers. The film portrays a rather unique father-and-son relationship in modern Chinese society. It usually gives men creeps if they need to directly express love to family members. They like to hide their affections as much as they can. To their closest family members, there is even a love-hate complex. Such paradoxical love reminds us of a concept in The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky: falling in love deeply may not be true love. Hating the person at the same time is love.

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Production company profile:

Love Me Tender Production develops production plans and makes films. The name derives from “Love Me Tender,” a song by Elvis Presley. The company's works include The Last Verse, The Cat in the Closet, Ye-Zai, Last Day of the Year, The Pool Man, and Suspended Moment. It won the Best Actor, Best Actress, and various technical prizes at the Golden Bell Awards in the mini TV series category. Both its full feature films and short films have been selected by more than 50 film festivals around the world. These include Tribeca Film Festival, Busan International Film Festival, Dubai International Film Festival, Taipei Film Festival, and Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival.

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Summary Of The Story:

Li Desheng, a farmer from Inner Mongolia, bade farewell to his lover in a constructive site in Yunnan Province. When he was preparing to collect his salary to celebrate the Chinese New Year back home, he found out that his boss just ran away. Li got a chair from the boss’s office. He decided to bring this chair back to his family as a gift to solve family problems.
His daughter worked in a factory in Southern China and does not want to go home because his father plans on using her wedding gift for her brother’s matchmaking. His son found out about his own homosexual tendencies and couldn’t face the fact that his parents want him to marry.
Under these circumstances, three members in this broken family of four get on their Spring Festival journey for their reunion at home.

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Director's Statement:

I was born in a village in Henan Province and grew up in a traditional peasant family with sixteen family members. I left the village by accident and got the opportunity to study in New York City and attend USC as a visiting scholar afterwards.
When the traditional culture left by the agricultural civilization met the western economic system after the Reform and Opening-up Policy, the city-countryside dualism, the economic tide and the unavoidable conflicts immersed every corner of the rural area, especially for the peasant families like mine.
One of my Hometown (metaphorical hometown, it represents all villages in China) trilogy is about the story of return, and the other two are about the story of leave and stay. The story presents the social group by exploring the meaning of an individual’s life and the fates of the characters as they are merged together with my personal emotional appeals.

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Summary Of The Story:

In a suburban school in Southern China, which is back against a dense forest on a mountain, distant gunshots travel from the forest, and a smell of smoke rises up in the muggy air. Liu Jie, a young lad from a remote island, enters into high school. Jie has never seen his father, and becomes an outlier because of his hearsay “blue eyes.” By chance, Jie is introduced into the basketball team by Mr. Wei, the coach whose imposing masculinity enthralls him. Jie becomes attached to Mr. Wei and worships him like a father. But the intimate relationship suddenly collapses because of Jie’s unconscious behavior. Mr. Wei forces Jie to wear a skirt and the whole school scoff at him. Jie revenges, which leads to the conviction of Mr. Wei. On a violent typhoon night, as rules and facades are destroyed, they see their true selves and advance to maturity on different levels. What follows, however, is their different destinies.

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Director's Statement:

The inspiration behind the film is my own high school years. Our high school was the typical suburban school in Southern China, against a lake and near a dense forest on a mountain. Distant gunshots travel to us and become muffled thuds. The sounds reverberate in the school, injecting a sense of unease into the hot and humid air. This sense of unease has always penetrated my teenage years. Shame is a fable that conveys a young man's unease under a dramatic arc. In a narrow narrative structure, between the symmetry of school and forest, a boy and a man, like two distinct personalities in different stages of their lives, chase, battle and struggle with one another, releasing the anxiety about their identities and reversing the power dynamic through rising emotional and atmospheric tension.

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Summary Of The Story:

Over a 90-minute running time, three stories are intersected to form the whole film. With a reversed narrative style, the film shows audience the inner world of pure, primitive, and interesting children. The three stories are the ‘Popcorn’, ‘Herding Pigs’ and ‘Scolding Clouds’, with Popcorn as the major storyline. The six-year-old boy decides to walk out of the village to make popcorn on his own. On his way, he encounters obstacles and meets adults’ neglect. He runs into a boy who has a pig. The boy steals a lot of corns from him. In the end, he meets a boy gang looking for ‘wood, flow, ox and horse’ and is robbed by them. A group of depressed kids finally decide to curse the clouds.

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Director's Statement:

What I want to do is a very interesting film. I also want to tell a very ordinary story. Nothing serious happens. Children's world should not have paid attention to those eye-catching events. This is a Chinese-style ‘country fairy tale’. It is a beautiful, real other world. In this world, children are another class. They are unable to communicate with adults and produce a lot of absurd stories. I think these stories are particularly relatable to the Chinese country life. They can communicate with the world through only one point. This is a Chinese coming-of-age story. Children in the East touch the world with the most primitive and the most primitive courage.

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