Summary Of The Story:

The film is adapted from a real person, mainly focused on a head of a gangster who loves movies. He entered the film industry with confidence, but accidentally found a very unreliable young director and shot a bad movie called A TERRIBLE DAY and nobody could understand it. The gangster was angry and wanted to send people to kill the director, but the film was unexpectedly awarded the best film at the Hong Kong Film Awards. The gangster became happy, thinking that he stood firm. However, he was arrested by the police because the film contained his real criminal behaviors. This incident has also caused a scene in the entire Hong Kong society, and the film has also aroused great attention from the audience. But when everyone was expecting the movie to be released at midnight, the movie copy was robbed by two other gangs...

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Director's Statement:

I have always been very interested in the relationship between the triad and the film industry in Hong Kong in the 1980s and 1990s. Their connections are very close. Through interviews with some insiders, I learned a lot of real cases of very dark and absurd comedies at that time. So by adapting and imagining, through a flashback story structure, I presented a part of the era through the film to express my nostalgia and love for the golden age of Hong Kong movies.

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Jury's Commentary:

An absurdist retelling of the history of the Golden Age of Hong Kong Films which depicts the ridiculousness and emotions between gangsters and film, both true and false.

Summary Of The Story:

This film is about how a 50-year-old Shanghai man Lao Bai handles his relationships with four women. Among them he most prefers a single mother called Ms. Lee. Unfortunately, Ms. Lee treats him as a sex tool and life helper. Another woman, who is married, has a crush on him. She helps him to hold an art exhibition, admiring Lao Bai while adding chaos. Lao Bai also has an ex-wife who he used to be so in love with, but his ex-wife still enjoys pointing fingers at his life. The last woman is Lao Bai's mother who always steals his things to give to her ex-wife, hoping that he and his ex-wife will reunite. As farces ends one after another, life will never give Lao Bai an answer.

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Director's Statement:

I create the protagonist Lao Bai based on my father who used to say to me sincerely that a man who is single cannot refuse a woman's advances for it is both rude and hurtful. So I try to talk and understand the view of relationship of middle-aged men in the story. Instead of playing with women, it is better to say that they are happy to be played with by women. There are no black and white in their relationships. It is the true meaning of life to face their own desires boldly. The story takes place in Shanghai, behind the stone gate, known as Shikumen which is a symbolic and traditional residence of Shanghai, the whole film will be rich in the old Shanghai atmosphere and appealing desire of men and women who live in.

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Jury's Commentary:

The modern city lifestyle feels fresh and lively while the portrait of the aging protagonists are vividly written.

Summary Of The Story:

In a small Southern Town, there is a castrated man's corpse.
After castrating and killing her father, An Wen, aged 18, deliberately made an encounter with Han Song, a criminal police officer, in order to create advantages and opportunities for her future alibi.
Han Song found clues but chose to suppress his doubts. In An Wen's most sensitive and fragile moment, Han Song decides to protect and guide her with patience. Han Song woke up her inherent hope.
An Wen chose to accept her own death penalty.
The truth is revealed in front of An Wen's tomb: An Wen's father sexually assaulted An Wen's younger brother, and An Wen witnessed the abuse.

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Director's Statement:

Wang Tong graduated from the Director Department of Communication University of China. His work has been nominated for the Best Feature For Student Unit of The 9th FIRST International Film Festival Xining, the Best Short Film for the 52nd Taiwan Golden Horse Awards, as well as the Best Short Film in Asia of the 20th Pusan International Film Festival. He has also won the Silver Award for the Best Short Film at the 2nd Asian University Film Festival.

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Production company profile:

HUZHOU UNIVERSE BREAKFAST PICTURES CO.,LTD The first film production SUBURBAN BIRDS won the Best Feature Film Award of the International Film Festival Xining in 2018. And also was incorporated into the Concorso Cineasti del presente of the Locarno International Film Festival.

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Jury's Commentary:

Adapted from a real-life criminal case, this film discusses social issues from a women's perspective: an eye for an eye.

Summary Of The Story:

On the yellow plateau, there lived a "vicious kid" named Naodan. Left behind by his parents and despised by villagers, he made his only friend with a rogue pig, which he met accidentally in the corn field. However, the village head schemes and uses dirty tricks to take over the corn field owned by Mayodan's family in order to start his own purebred pig farm. To take back his corn field, the boy and the pig joins forces and fought back. Here comes the big battle of the mischievous boy Naodan and his unruly friend Piggie Gangpao.

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Director's Statement:

Taking place in 1990s northwest China, this is a surreal animation feature with absurdist elements, that's chock full of dark humor.
The main character is a "vicious kid" who was abandoned by his parents. He plays pranks to fight back the evil force. Through his resistance, Naodan also learns to repay other people's kindness, not to be afraid of the evil force, and be brave to take the responsibilities in life.
"Freedom" is the theme of the film. The widow and the pig bring warmth to Naodan and they provide stability as well as a motivation for him to take on tyranny.

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Production company profile:

Shenzhen Feng Animation Cultural Development Co., Ltd was established in 1997. Its founder is Chen Xifeng. Feng Animation has worked for numerous animation productions and won the fame for its excellent artistic skills. In 2012, Feng animation developed and produced short animation PIG SALE which won lots of international awards.

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Jury's Commentary:

This is not a cute little harmless fairy tale, but an orgy of chivalrous rebel's.

Summary Of The Story:

The father died of cancer, the shabby mourning hall, the sloppy funeral... The evidences of father's existence are gradually disappearing. Ma Bo tries to keep everything of his dead father in a crazy and stubborn way. For him, this is a kind of powerless and miserable "salvation". The loneliness and sorrow that had been buried in his heart for years are magnified and eventually burst out.

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Director's Statement:

PAINFUL STONE depicts the loneliness and sorrow in the young man, and in Ma bo's heart when he went home to attend his father's funeral. There are a lot of high technologies and new inventions in this era. People take selfies, but their true self still cannot be seen; We have GPS, but it is still difficult to find the way to our inner self. We are still lonely, miserable and stressed.

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Jury's Commentary:

"A Guide on the Disposal of Items of the Deceased", with sadness that still lingers. Facing the misfortunes that happen to a family, but also looking back at the self during a time of uncertainty.

Summary Of The Story:

A young rocker named Zhang Dawei falls in love with a missing hippie girl named Sun Ge, who ransacks Zhang Dawei's house every time she disappears. . Zhang Dawei is a cool-looking person with a soft heart, and has no one to talk to because of his rock star persona. He is like a grumbling woman, looking for the Sun Ge. In this mismatched love story of a rock star and his lover, a young man and woman each grow up in their own ways.

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Director's Statement:

BEIJING WITCH's original novel, THE MISSING WOMAN, was published in OCTOBER magazine in 2008 and won the Lao She Literary Award. It is a romantic film with elements of music and comedy. The story took place in 2005, when the commercialization of Chinese rock music began. Some dreams are shattered, others live on in changed form. The purity of youth is sealed in it. I hid the zeitgeist on the back of this pink romance film in an attempt to offer a new spiritual option to the youth of today.

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Production company profile:

Established in 2018, Beijing Cornerstone Entertainment Co. provides a full range of professional services for outstanding film directors, including project incubation and financing, production and marketing and distribution.

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Jury's Commentary:

When a silly sparrow meets a footless pigeon, they wander around and wait for the other to land. The story combines the emotional with commercial elements seamlessly.

Summary Of The Story:

For all Li's life, his destinations have been given by his passengers and he looped all his life as a taxi driver in the City of Xi'an. This summer, Sanqin' s family members left one by one to pursue their own destinations, leaving him alone. Just when Sanqin is hopeless, Mars Immigration Program crossed his path. He makes a small step towards his journey to a different destination: Mars.

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Director's Statement:

Li Sanqin is a taxi driver I met while taking a taxi. Like most people in Xi'an, he is not good at expressing emotions. Without a destination and ego, he lives step by step. I hope they can look up at the stars and try to challenge life and find themselves.

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Jury's Commentary:

A lively and ingenious comedy which seamlessly integrates local customs and modernity with a relaxed and joyous attitude of life.

Summary Of The Story:

Located at the foot of holy Mount Meili in Tibetan Area, Yunli village is the starting point and ending point for followers to make pilgrimages to the holy mountain. It has been snowing heavily for days, and a group of followers who came for the holy mountain were stuck. Therefore, the police inspector of Yunli immediately organizes a rescue team to drive into the snow mountain to save the trapped people. This rescue team is made up of police and criminals, and the tension among them has become more acute. Being alive has become an extravagant hope in the extremely cold snow mountain. So, how will they rescue the trapped people in the snow mountain?

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Director's Statement:

When I was working as an intern in the local police station, a senior police officer said that police can never know what would await them behind the door. But they always dare to open the door as it is a part of their duty. This still remains fresh in my memory. Such a door is the epitome of the work of the police. They never know what kind of danger they would face, but they are always ready. Therefore, with the story of JIGME, I hope to explore the belief that supports the police to open the door.

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Jury's Commentary:

The belief is what brings people from different professions together. In the deep and cold snow mountains, the good and evil in people rotates back and forth.

Summary Of The Story:

During the British colonial era, a pair of young lovers were brought together and separated by The North Borneo Railway. It was a love without an ending. Now that more than half a century has passed, the now old lady decided to take on the same train, to search for the boy that's forever young in her memory.

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Director's Statement:

In my years of documentary filmmaking, I've met lots of indigenous people. I noticed that for those who spend most of their lives in the forest or mountains, their innocence was well preserved. I have seen grandma that was in her 80s with a heart as pure as a 16-year-old girl. It amazed me. THE NORTH BORNEO RAILWAY is part of Sabah's heritage, and I'd like to tell a story that surrounds it.
What if a tribal girl that came from the mountains fell in love with a city boy? What if the railway, the only transport that connects them, was shut down? There are so many possibilities to play with.
I want to make a movie with "first love" and "youth" as the central theme. These are the things that we'll lose growing up. I want to explore the possibility of what if someone never loses it?

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Production company profile:

NG Picture is an award winning documentary production house based in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. It was founded by Director Nova Goh in year 2013. It has produced award winning documentary titles such as THE LAST RING LADY, and THE LOVE OF TAPANG TREE.

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Jury's Commentary:

Seediq Bale and Cape by Kobasara. Borrowing a touching classic romance story, in bringing out the exquisite culture of the local and the overseas.

Summary Of The Story:

Q, A college student majoring in music teaches piano to a middle school boy L. Q was accused of sexual assault by L's parents after returning from a short journey together. Did the young boy lie due to his resistance to learning piano? Or was Q a child predator who was guilty of the unspeakable crime? As the twisted case of the sexual assault unfolds, audiences will be kept on the edge of their seat for the entire film.

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Director's Statement:

From a panoramic point of view, this film shows all kinds of characters in a big family. These characters fight against and depend on each other, forming a group full of dramatic charm. This film is the director's attempt to explore the relationship of family, life and the world. It is also an aesthetic response to his love for films.

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Jury's Commentary:

In a family, every member has their own troubles. For a family, FAMILY TREE is a story about being brave through the painful process of self-development.

Summary Of The Story:

A middle-aged female gynecologist, Feng Meiyu, who learned that her recently pass-away daughter had had her eggs frozen (Oocyte Cryopreservation), decided to fight for the inheritance right of the frozen egg and to give birth to it in order to continue the life of her daughter. During the process, Feng had gradually discovered the unknown side of her daughter and had a new understanding of the mother-and-daughter relationship. In the end, Feng finally gave up the inheritance right. Maybe the moment the egg broke, was also the moment of her daughter's rebirth.

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Director's Statement:

Through the topic of "frozen egg", the story leads to a discussion about mother-and-daughter intergenerational relations. Feng Meiyu owns a successful career and lives a stable life; however, she often unconsciously transfers the pressure caused by stereotypes of women in the society to her only daughter. In order to win the inheritance right of the egg after her daughter's death, Feng must persuade the judge that the final fate of the egg is not necessarily to be fertilized. Outside the court, she needs to convince herself that her daughter's value neither comes from a mother's requirements nor the society's imagination of women. The story begins with a frozen egg and ends with the awakening of feminism.

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Jury's Commentary:

In a special mother-daughter relationship, a female moral dilemma is revealed about body, reproduction, and family.

Summary Of The Story:

Kaisar is grown-up and leaves his family. At the time of parting, he inadvertently returned to the lakeside where he pursued the Water God (Su perisi) in childhood. The past ripples and the fragments of the lives of three generations in the family reemerge, linking up the consequences and cause of his little brother's accidental drowning many years ago. As time goes by, it seems like the accident changed not only Kaisar's path of life, but also the others' in his family.

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Director's Statement:

My boyfriend is Kazakh, which is the origin of the story. I hope to show the poetic qualities of the ethnic group from a contemporary perspective, so I interweave various stories and center them around the disappearing tradition of the "son's return" in order to reflect on the health, life, death of the contemporary Kazakh family. It is an attempt to I probe into the ripple-like intrinsic connection of things. Life fades, traditions vanish and tales disappear. These lost things seem to exist in the hearts of the Kazakh in another form…

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Production company profile:

Heaven Pictures (Beijing) the movie CO., LTD

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Jury's Commentary:

The structure of four independent time and space implies thematic subtleties that depict the relationship between antiquity, the present and the future.

Summary Of The Story:

Woods State Forest Farm lives in obscurity on the border has a short history of half a century. And then the farm is plagued with insomnia and aging ailment. Three generations of people live by planting jew's ears in an unknown farm.
Tong San, who just turns 40, dies suddenly because of systemic organ failure, throwing people on the farm into deep panic. The juvenile "Popsicle" returns to the farm at this time and exposes the crime committed by the Tong's family on the farm, resulting in the accidental disappearance of the Woods State Forest Farm.

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Director's Statement:

Woods State is a jinxed place with no festivals and blessings. Its history is so short that people of the same age are there, but it is vanishing. Its inhabitants, only capable of lumbering, have exhausted the forest in only 50 years without even forming an emotional, historical or cultural bond with it.
As if their logging machines deserted in the wasteland, these people are not equipped with the knowledge about how to survive after the forest is gone. Violence and unusual illness affect their bodies, giving rise to a battle between human morals and animal instinct.

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Jury's Commentary:

The writing of the script is like an axe in the mountains, the burning spiritual world has its own pulse, which let audiences have a glimpse of the solitude and grandeur of life.

Summary Of The Story:

A poet seemingly from ancient China, a vagabond, a woman recently released from prison and a cook - these four sick nonentities are roaming around the city of Nanjing, huddling for warmth and seeking for miracle. When the mysterious disease is about to break out as predicted in that anthology of poems on miscellaneous diseases, they see the giant book flapping its heavy wings over the Yangtze River. Therefore, they chose to leave the ground and start to fly...

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Director's Statement:

It was an awful moment when I started to write the script of TREATISE ON COLD DAMAGE DISORDERS. Several of my family members got sick one after another. So, I spent most of my time in the hospital taking care of them. Once, I noticed that on the wall of the hospital, hung a portrait of Zhang Zhongjing, a famous ancient physician (150-219 A.D.), and his distinguished work Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases. I realized that though thousands of years have passed, Chinese people are still suffering from the same pain caused mentally by the cold damage disorder, and physically by miscellaneous diseases. We live exactly in the same spiritual and biological systems of our ancestors. Nobody succeeded in leaping over the past, and nobody succeeded in forgetting. Finally, we are each other's witness and reflection.

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Production company profile:

Factory Gate Films is a production company founded in 2017 by veteran film lovers and experienced professionals from different branches of the cinema industry. With a production lineup blending art-house and commercial work of acclaimed and upcoming directors, Factory Gate's mission is to produce unique and high quality films for both Chinese and international audiences, with an emphasis on scouting and fostering new talents.

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Jury's Commentary:

Crazy, strange, humorous, painful, ancient and undeniable present. You have to follow carefully without ignoring it.

Summary Of The Story:

Middle-aged screenwriter Du Zhong is in lack of creative inspiration, he got divorced just a while ago. The director Gou Qi is in lack of creativity as well, so they go together to Suoyang County in northwest China for a tourism promotional film project. During this time, Du Zhong was hospitalized because of kidney stone. He found a hospital bed there which could make people have weird dreams, and many of his worries and anxieties could be released through those dreams. These two middle-aged men were wandering in Gobi desert, hoping to meet the young selves.

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Director's Statement:

Isn't it good to put our unbearable experiences in life to films? Self-mockery and sarcasm might be the best way of communication. By using my anxieties in exchange for your smile, we can all become lost in a deep reverie together.

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Production company profile:

VIDEOCASE (Beijing) has been working on production and technical services of art, film and business videos.

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Jury's Commentary:

A sexual comedy that explores midlife crisis and self-anxiety, using the Northwest Highway genre as a context which adds vigor and vitality to the story.

Summary Of The Story:

An aftershock from an earthquake 12 years ago connects Xiaoli to a time and space in his childhood. Xiaoli encounters Songqian, who is secretly in love with him, in a class reunion. The secrets of his father's disappearance, and an accident caused by a game of hide-and-seek begin to reveal themselves. Following the tides of his memories, Xiaoli is struggling to unveil the truth that he once forgot in the past.

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Director's Statement:

At the end of 2019, I experienced an earthquake in Beijing. Experts claimed that it was an aftershock of the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. To my utter amazement, the memories of the past are connected to the present because of the aftershock.
The two storylines in this film symbolize vanishing. The game of hide and seek implies the departure from life, whereas the missing of the father insinuates leaving a place behind. Within our life, we are all in the process of hiding true selves. With the story, I want to narrate memories of individuals weaving with people's memory of our time.

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Production company profile:

Flash Forward Entertainment is an award-winning production/distribution/sales company. FFE engages in numerous international co-production as the main producer. Its production credits include THE ROAD TO MANDALAY, ETERNAL SUMMER, ICE POISON, AN IMPOSSIBLY SMALL OBJECT, A FISH WITH A SMILE, etc.

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Jury's Commentary:

The reorganization of time and space is touching the inner scars slowly, and grasps the poetic connection between the real world and the spiritual world.

Summary Of The Story:

DOWNSTREAM is a miniature epic of the Chen's family, who is one of the boatmen groups sailing from the Beijing-Hangzhou Great Canal to Yangtze River by shipping sand and stone day and night. More than a decade ago, the father of the Chen family left without saying goodbye, which caused every member of the family to have different demands and desires in their hearts: Mother Lu Fang, eldest sister Chen Pansy, second brother Chen Zhen, younger brother Chen Wen, and even young nephew Yang Yang. The story depicts contradiction and resonance and strives to approach the core of family members' relations and emotions, through their dinner gathering in the Mid-Autumn Festival.

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Director's Statement:

As modes of transportation changes, the boatman cultural collapses and the groups are vanishing. Some people decide to evacuate ashore, while others insist staying on boats. When both situations occur in one family, it could tear up the relationships and emotions between the family members, such as in the Chen's family in the story DOWNSTREAM. Going ashore or living on a boat, it is a question. And also, it is the social background for DOWNSTREAM.

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Production company profile:

The White Tapir Film Studio was founded at Beijing in 2016. The company is committed to the creation and integration of Genre films and Art-house films, especially in the subject of fantasy.

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Jury's Commentary:

A solid narrative with an honest and unpretentious creative attitude show us a talented emerging filmmaker.

Summary Of The Story:

One day in the late summer of 1988, the police department posted a wanted notice in the village offering a reward for the capture of two wanted men. Villager Zhang Xinmin is an ordinary farmer. The cost for his son's eye disease is a huge sum of money for him. In desperation, he joins the village joint defense team with the wild dream to to catch the wanted man and getting the reward. However, in the end, Zhang Xinmin himself becomes involved in a homicide in the south.

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Director's Statement:

In the past 20 years, all the characters in the script and their stories have been lingering in my mind, because these are what I saw and heard in my childhood. Fortunately, I have found such a perspective: connecting the wanted criminals with an ordinary farmer family to show the life, fate and choices of people in the social transition period, hoping to convey the complexity, diversity and ambiguity of people with universal significance in life.

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Production company profile:

Mato Pictures, is founded in Shenzhen in 2016, it takes shooting and makes films including feature films and documentaries as its main direction. The company aims to "foster new directors and make good films in the south" as the main goal.

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Jury's Commentary:

A crime fable without warning, a village beautified by memory, the director gives viewers a pair of eyes that are intermittently blind in the face of the past events of the times.

Summary Of The Story:

Hao Chun Fang, a long-established family owned restaurant in Tianjin, is on the brink of bankruptcy after its cook, Dafu, is involved in a car accident. Jin Mei, their only daughter, lives in Paris as a chef in a gourmet restaurant. She must return to Tianjin to help the family. But instead of getting the money from the careless driver, she brings home, as a compensation, a robot called "XiaoXianJi". The coming of this multi-purpose Artificial Intelligence, trained as a surrogate cook, awakens long buried conflicts, grudges and even family secrets. Can this "Little Fresh Machine" save this already highly dysfunctional family?

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Director's Statement:

Wang Xinyu and Emmanuel Sapolsky are a creative duo fusionned under a common signature name: "Double Angle". They have been writing and directing together for more than ten years between Paris and Beijing. Speaking French, English and Mandarin, they created various fictions for Chinese digital platforms, French and American television network and film distribution. Xiao Xian Ji marks their second film, after the selection of THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE BUZZ at the 2019 First Festival.

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Jury's Commentary:

Having an unique way of storytelling, the director shows a heartwarming story based on delicious food and science fiction films.

Summary Of The Story:

The surface of Suibian County sank due to the exhaustion of coal mines, which is dividing the people of the county. Some look forward to a new life, while others are still stuck in their old home.
Zhao Muyang, a divorced police officer, is having a mid-life crisis. He hopes to resolve his daughter's conflict and his new girlfriend and become a family by moving to a big house in the new area. But the county's serial murders is making him reconsider.
For the last time "Blood Shehuo" in the old county, Zhao Muyang found the murderer. In the process of hunting, can Zhao Muyang enter a new world?

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Director's Statement:

In the poem, "Who says that the Yellow River is wide? With a bundle of reeds I can cross it," it is undoubtedly cool to watch one person cross the river while everyone is talking about the broadness of the river. It doesn't matter whether he has a purpose or a reason, the action is enough to simply prove that this individual is independent of the group's self-consciousness and a positive response to the human nature. This is the theme and subject that the film wants to explore.

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Production company profile:

BEIJING SIGNS PICTURES CO.LTD. was founded by director Zhao Tianyu. The company insists on originality and content, and is committed to creating and producing high-quality film and television works.

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Jury's Commentary:

A slick depiction of a shadowy murder investigation. Would those who live in a sinking city be abandoned by times?

Summary Of The Story:

Dronkar is a deaf girl living in the Kangba Mountains. But her peaceful and confined life were broken when she was raped. She decided to escape the hometown with her sister's assistance, to pursue a new life of her own, because she was to be married against her will in the morning.

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Director's Statement:

I am a bilingual deaf person, living in Tibet for ten years. I transform from the listener to the hard listener and then to the thoroughly deaf, three different stages of life change. Therefore, the fate of the deaf, life and encounter, have profound empathy. I want to be able to help the disabled in my own way, which is why I decided to make this movie. I want to complete the film as a deaf screenwriter and director, to speak out for these silent groups.

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Jury's Commentary:

A Tibetan deaf girl is fleeing from her shackled fate, to gain control of her own life and fight against oppression.