Director: Tian Zhuangzhuang | China | Color | 88min | Fiction
In 1923, the Tibetan Norbu becomes a horse thief to earn a living. For his beloved sick son Tashi, Norbu robs the government’s gifts for the monastery with his accomplices, and plans to use the stolen goods to redeem his pledge for Tashi to the monastery. After the robbery is found out, Norbu’s family are banished out of their tribe and they have to lead a vagrant life. As Tashi’s condition gradually deteriorates, Norbu devoutly seeks for Buddha’s blessing, yet fails to save his child. Soon after that, his wife Dolma is pregnant again, but the suffering doesn’t end…
Director: Zhai Yixiang | China | Color | 110min | Fiction
Migrant worker Xu comes back home upon finding out about his 14-year-old daughter Ying’s sudden pregnancy. He seeks for justice in vain, when Ying’s school and local authorities promise an investigation but prevaricate over Ying’s accusation against her teacher. Jia, a journalist from Shenzhen, shows interest in the case as he scrutinizes the misty town. When he gets lost in trailing into the rebellious girl’s real life, he lingers around, waiting for the shocking truth to be revealed only after childbirth… At the center of the whirlpool, Ying endures the spotlight shone on her body with indifference. Shortly after labor, the young mother leaves town to receive social assistance in an effort to heal her past. Will she find peace in her future? Will her inner voice be heard one day?
Director: Bettina Perut Iván Osnovikoff | Chile/Germany | Color | 78 min | Documentary
Chola and Football are a couple of street dogs that live in the Los Reyes skatepark. A microcosm is organized around them, composed of things, animals and young adolescents in conflict with an adult world that they reject but are required to enter.
Director: Nora Fingscheidt | Germany | Color | 118min | Fiction
She is small, but dangerous. Wherever Benni ends up, she is immediately expelled. The wild 9-year-old girl has already become what child protection services call a “system crasher”. And she is certainly not looking to change her ways. Because Benni has one single goal: to be back at home with her mommy! But Bianca is scared of her own daughter. Mrs. Bafané from child protection services is trying her best to find a permanent placement for Benni. She hires the anger management trainer Micha as Benni’s school escort and suddenly there is a seed of hope. Will Micha be able to succeed where all others despaired?
While being acutely authentic, first-time director Nora Fingscheidt transcends a psychological study and crafts vibrant, visceral and emotional cinema, which evokes unforgettable performances.
Director: Li Wenyu Deng Weiqi Wong Wai Nap Xie Yun | | | 80min | Short Film Collection
A Bus
A bus drives from city A to city B.
What about Bready Then?
To save his favorite sheep ‘Bready’ from being sold by his father, the child, accompanying with his father, set out on a sheep-sale journey. By satisfying the buyer’s ‘special need’, the child managed to rescue ‘Bready’, only to find that the fate of ‘Bready’ had been incompatible with the whole flock.
That Morning
Set in Hong Kong, Eya is a shy teen who takes writing as a way to escape alienation, bullying, and loneliness. On the school fun day, Eya remains silent in the interview, but she is not the only one who finds life is too hard to bear. Everything is changed that morning.
Pier Las Vegas
Gao Xing, a hearing-disabled and vocally impaired person from a small town in China, an ordinary housekeeper at a Las Vegas casino hotel, always rummage through the guests’ luggage secretly while cleaning the room to search for clues about his sister who was adopted by an American family long ago. Hotel work is only a part of Gao’s life. He shuttles in the crowds at the most prosperous city with a teddy-bear suite after work and distributes the tracing notices to passers. At one afternoon, when Gao was cleaning a room, he encountered a girl who was going to the music festival near the hotel. After she left, in her suitcase, Gao found a little bear toy which was the one hand-stitched by her mother when he was young. Gao was smiling and tearing, but he couldn’t hear the continuous gunshots outside the window. The massive shooting at the Las Vegas Music Festival that shocked the world later on, is happening…
Director: Wang Lina | China | Color | 88min | Fiction
Deep in northwestern China, surrounded by cotton fields and desert, lies the Uyghur village that Isa calls home. When he is not at school or working on his parents’ farmyard, he spends carefree days with his friends – until the outside world starts forcing him to say one goodbye after another. With Isa’s mother’s illness placing an increasing burden on the family, his father considers putting her in a care home, far away from the village. Isa’s best friend Kalbinur is getting bad grades and is about to be sent to a faraway Chinese school. And then the little lamb, which the two children had been looking after with devotion ever since it was born, disappears. Captured in naturalistic imagery, winter closes in on Isa’s world.
Director: Lei Lei | United States | Color | 68min | Fiction
‘Have you ever dreamed of something when you were young?’ A woman recalls her youthful memories of her 1970’s. The development course and the process of modernization are revived and unfolds in front of us. One day, the first breathless animal appears to her, a white horse…
Director: Wang Jing | China | Color | 123min | Fiction
Changfeng Town is located in an inconspicuous corner of China. The townspeople know each other well and are content with life. Airplanes pass by the town from time to time, reminding people of an unknown outside world. Many things in town exist in solitude – the cinema, the dentist, the Auto repair shop, the news office, and the elementary school. The townspeople are unique and full of eccentricities. They each has a story of their own: The domestic problem of the aimless Redhead, the secret between the dentist and his son, the unrequited love of cinema ticket-seller Cai-Xia, the loneliness of the crippled Xi-Shan and the humdrum life of the Mayor. A few mischievous boys wander in and out of these little stories, eventually with the coming-of-age and departure of one of these boys. The film tells in five intertwining chapters, always filled with joy and sadness but never without hope.
Director: Chai Xiaoyu | China | Color | 106min | Fiction
Zhang xiaoyu called director Chai Xiaoyu and said he was not confident of playing the role in the film. Chai’s classmate Li Haifeng comes to Beijing with his girlfriend Yanyan from Guangzhou. Yanyan comes to Beijing to study violin and longs to enter a professional orchestra. Although Haifeng comes to Beijing for accompanying Yanyan, he is also secretly dating his ex-girlfriend since he is in Beijing. Haifeng began to worry that Yanyan may be cheating on him. There was always a sense of distrust between them. One night, Zhang and Yanyan have sex behind Haifeng’s back, and on the same night Haifeng and his ex-girlfriend hold hands on a taxi. Haifeng is surprised when he sees Yanyan and her professor walking out of school, but he doesn’t say a word. He just runs past them. Zhang and Chai discuss how to handle the relationship and love in the play. Zhang was gradually persuaded by Chai and became more and more interested in the character in the script.
Director: Qu Youjia Layla Jian Luo Xie Yun | | | 85min | Short Film Collection
Together Apart
After a lengthy Chinese funeral, Xiaoqin found her deceased father was back home again. The unexpectable reunion dooms a re-separation ending.
What Do You Know about the Water and the Moon
During an abortion, instead of aborting the fetus, a girl gives birth to a live jellyfish.
Pier Las Vegas
Gao Xing, a hearing-disabled and vocally impaired person from a small town in China, an ordinary housekeeper at a Las Vegas casino hotel, always rummage through the guests’ luggage secretly while cleaning the room to search for clues about his sister who was adopted by an American family long ago. Hotel work is only a part of Gao’s life. He shuttles in the crowds at the most prosperous city with a teddy-bear suite after work and distributes the tracing notices to passers. At one afternoon, when Gao was cleaning a room, he encountered a girl who was going to the music festival near the hotel. After she left, in her suitcase, Gao found a little bear toy which was the one hand-stitched by her mother when he was young. Gao was smiling and tearing, but he couldn’t hear the continuous gunshots outside the window. The massive shooting at the Las Vegas Music Festival that shocked the world later on, is happening…
Director: Denis Côté | Canada | Color | 97min | Fiction
In Irénée-les-Neiges, a small, isolated town with a population of 215, Simon Dubé dies in a car accident. The stunned townspeople are reluctant to discuss the circumstances of the tragedy. From that point on, for the Dubé family as well as for Mayor Smallwood and a handful of others, time seems to lose all meaning, and the days stretch on without end. Something descends slowly upon the area. In this period of mourning and in this fog, strangers start to appear. Who are they? What is happening?
Director: Emil Langballe | Denmark | Color | 60 min | Documentary
Q´s Barbershop is located in the heart of Vollsmose – the largest social housing project in Denmark – and is a popular hangout spot for the young Somalis of the area. The owner of the salon, Qasim, is from Somalia himself, and he makes sure that young people in Vollsmose have got style. Also, you can get advices about life such as love, relationship or education. Necessarily, Qasim is happy to help for the Danish test while trimming and styling. No matter if you are an immigrant, a criminal, or a straight-A student, you all need a cool haircut. And the majority of Q´s customers do in fact leave the barbershop with renewed energy for whatever challenges the rest of the day – or life in general – might bring.
Director: Jiang Feng | China | Color & Black and White | 104min | Documentary
In Hainan, there is a Guanyin Temple. The Guanyin in the temple decided to make a movie based on her personal experience. Two friends and I planned to make a documentary Guanyin Also Make Movies built from this event. Gradually, the act of us shooting the documentary, starting to echo with the act of Guanyin making the movie. To every single person, the image has its own unique significance. Therefore, we also turned the camera to ourselves, deriving Three Men Who Made a Movie Named Guanyin Also Make Movies Also Made a Movie from Guanyin Also Make Movies.
Director: Makoto Nagahisa | Japan | Color | 121min | Drama/Music
One sunny day, four young teens Hikari, Ikuko, Ishi and Takemura meet by chance at a crematorium, all having lost their parents at the same time. Hikari’s were because of a car crash on holiday. Ikuko’s were murdered by a deranged stalker. Ishi’s were due to a gas explosion. Takemura’s killed themselves to escape from heavy debt. But none of them could shed a tear. They were like zombies, devoid of all emotion. Alone in the world with no future, no dreams or even the energy to move forward, they dress themselves with rags from a garbage dump, turning their favorite items into musical instruments, and decide to form band called Little Zombies, trying to retrieve their access to tears.
Director: Burak Çevik | Turkey/Canada/France | Color | 73min | Fiction
Belonging makes a topographic observation by following the locations of a criminal case 15 years after the incident, accompanied by statements given by the suspects.
Then, it shows the night that the murderer couple met.
Director: Teona Strugar Mitevska | Republic of Macedonia/Belgium/France/Croatia/Slovenia | Color | 100min | Fiction
In Stip, a small town in Macedonia, every January the local priest throws a wooden cross into the river and hundreds of men dive after it. Good fortune and prosperity are guaranteed to the man who retrieves it. This time, Petrunya dives into the water on a whim and manages to grab the cross before the others. Her competitors are furious – how dare a woman take part in their ritual? All hell breaks loose, but Petrunya holds her ground. She won her cross and will not give it up.
Director: Wang Lina | China | Color | 88min | Fiction
Deep in northwestern China, surrounded by cotton fields and desert, lies the Uyghur village that Isa calls home. When he is not at school or working on his parents’ farmyard, he spends carefree days with his friends – until the outside world starts forcing him to say one goodbye after another. With Isa’s mother’s illness placing an increasing burden on the family, his father considers putting her in a care home, far away from the village. Isa’s best friend Kalbinur is getting bad grades and is about to be sent to a faraway Chinese school. And then the little lamb, which the two children had been looking after with devotion ever since it was born, disappears. Captured in naturalistic imagery, winter closes in on Isa’s world.
Director: Wang Qi | China/Japan | Color | 116min | Fiction
A story based on a young Chinese family living in Japan. Set in the vibrant 1990s, the family struggles to adapt to the capitalistic Japanese society. One day, their grandfather comes to visit them from Shanghai, and they try to act like a happy family to welcome the grandfather.
Director: Wang Kunlin | United States/China | Color | 91min | Fiction
Obscure is a coming-of-age story of a teenage boy, who sexually awakens after discovering the dark secret relationship between his father and sister. The story takes place in an alienated, self-contained universe. The boy spends his days working on the farm with livestock, in fear of his authoritarian father, and in the close, intimate company of his sister. The sister’s gender expression is repressed, and she suffers harsh, repetitive farm work as well as assaults from the father. The sibling love and companionship, which once served to counterbalance familial strangeness, is now disturbed after the boy develops a sexual desire for the sister.
Director: Yang Lina | China | Color | 124min | Fiction
Guo Jianbo is a journalist specializing in social news. She lives together with her mother and daughter. Many reports she covered brought her a lot of pain and agony.
Her mother helps out in the local community after retirement. She is warm and friendly to all the residents and people in that community and regularly organizes singing competitions.
But there seems to be an invisible glass wall between Guo and her mother. Guo’s daughter grows up and develops her own personality in the cracks of that invisible screen. The family ties that bind the three together and the nature of the times in which they each grew up have seeped into their veins like a deadly poison.
Three generations. Three different contexts. Each of them has their own way of escaping from the reality around them, but they inevitably clash from time to time. After a particularly serious confrontation, the grandmother is admitted to hospital and peace returns to their lives.
Among all the anxiety and hurt brought about by Guo’s father, their experiences of the past and worries for the future, we also get a glimpse of reconciliation and a glimmer of hope.
Director: Xu Lei | China | Color | 90min | Fiction
Chaoying, Shuhe and Zhanyi are three ordinary rural elders who have a good relationship and often drink together.Recently, Chaoying sold all his cattle which he had raised for a long time，and began to renovate his old house full of ambition. However, an accident at the construction site happened unexpectedly. Shuhe, who came to help Chaoying build the house, was hit by a car which ran away. According to the convention of the village, if the killer cannot be found, Chaoying will be responsible for the unaffordable medical expenses. And in this case, he would had no money for his house. In order to keep Chaoying’s house and to demand justice for their friend, two old rural men, Chaoying and Zhanyi, embarked on the journey of chasing the hit-and-run driver. They rode three-wheeled electric motors and ran on the vast North China Plain. It was doomed to be an absurd journey…
Director: Wei Zi Pan Qianyu Zeng Zhi Li Wenyu Shen Jie | | | 58min | Short Film Collection
Like Gold, Like Grey
Like Gold, Like Grey is a 20-minute observational film, focuses on the manufacture of saxophones in a small village in the northern part of China. The village is named ‘Saxophone Capital’, where produces over 10,000 saxophones per month at more than 70 factories. Although more than 3,500 people are working for the production of saxophones, however, less than 10 people know how to play this instrument. The head of these factories hired saxophone teacher from town, to teach them how to play the saxophone for free, which already lasts ten years. The most popular saxophone song in here is Going Home (Kenny G, 1989). This song is also known as one of the famous western songs in China for over 30 years.
The Abyss
In this world, no one has his/her own name except a code. Human beings are divided into several levels. Different levels were assigned to different types of work. The ‘Fountain’ is both the source of energy and the landmark landscape in this city. There are many tall towers like diving platforms near the fountain. People can get closed to the ‘fountain’ here.
Hello
A cleaner who worked alone in the underground parking lot every day, faced the heavy rain and leaking rooms, and finally he jumped into the trunk of a zombie car.
A Bus
A bus drives from city A to city B.
Splash
The splash of water is like a bomb, about to break the tranquility of the pool.
Director: Tony Tan | China | Color | 74min | Documentary
The couple Is Not the Same Birds is a documentary based on a family from the ordinary middle class. It was shot in Dandong, Liaoning Province, the largest border city in China. The film looks into a couple who divorced 15 years ago, and the director interviewed them about their daily lives. The director makes a comparison between the past and the current life with the combination of home videos and showed the present situation of the second marriage – the director’s parents’ marriage as well as their opinions on marriage and love.
Director: Sun Yang S. Leo Chiang | China | Color | 81min | Documentary
When influential Chinese artist Ma Liang (a.k.a. Maleonn) realizes that his father Ma Ke, an accomplished Peking Opera director, is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, he invites his father to collaborate on his most ambitious project to date – a haunting, magical, autobiographical stage performance featuring life-size mechanical puppets called ‘Papa’s Time Machine’. Through the creation of this play, the two men confront their mortality before time runs out and memories are lost forever.
Director: Zhou Mingying | China | Color | 98min | Documentary
In a utopian world called ‘The Land of Peach Blossoms’, grandiose collectivism is spread out from the central authority, which asked the youth to sacrifice the self-consciousness, to establish an ideal community. In the utopian experiment of happiness, tiredness and strictness, the faith among people gradually reversed by reality, some even become resistant. The wonderland faces a severe challenge.
Director: Sun Yang S. Leo Chiang | China | Color | 81min | Documentary
When influential Chinese artist Ma Liang (a.k.a. Maleonn) realizes that his father Ma Ke, an accomplished Peking Opera director, is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, he invites his father to collaborate on his most ambitious project to date – a haunting, magical, autobiographical stage performance featuring life-size mechanical puppets called ‘Papa’s Time Machine’. Through the creation of this play, the two men confront their mortality before time runs out and memories are lost forever.
Director: Zhang Chong Zhang Bo | China | Color | 91min |
Liu Lu is a sika deer breeder who buried herself in her painful past. After learning that there is another ‘her’ in the parallel world, she wants to know if ‘she’ has a better life. So that, she reveals the accident happened twenty years ago, which puzzled herself between reality and illusory.
Director: Gu Xiaogang | China | Color | 150min | Fiction
At the 70th birthday celebration, the aged mother of the Yu family suffers from a stroke, which precipitates her decline into dementia. Who will take care of her? The four brothers face crucial changes in their relationships to one another, as they deal with their own family problems. The eldest brother tries to control her rebellious daughter who fights for her freedom of marriage. The second brother, still living on a fishing boat, has to buy an apartment for his son who is getting married. The third brother lives with his son with Down syndrome and is constantly hounded by his creditors. The youngest son lives a lonely but irresponsible life. Their destinies, linked by love and challenged by questions and dilemmas, unfold over the course of four seasons, as in an ancient Chinese scroll painting.
Director: Ivan Marković Wu Linfeng | Germany/China/Serbia | Color | 60min | Fiction
The vast, growing city remains unexplored. Li works at night and sleeps during the daytime. His roommate lives in an adverse time schedule. In underground housing, two men sleep on the same bed at a different time. This tiny space becomes a temporal shelter to both of them. But they are leaving soon.
Director: Huang Zi | China | Color | 110min | Fiction
Everything changes for a family of three when Weiming,he husband and father was diagnosed with terminal cancer.The family shrouded in sadness since after,although they all try to maintain peace. The mother, Muling, who supports the family all by herself, is not understood by her husband and son. When her sick husband and son become closer, she becomes more isolated. Although Muling has tried her best to keep Weiming from knowing his real condition, Weiming has come to realize that death is approaching. Yiming, their son, receives university admission from the U.S. He decides to keep it secret since he knows that his family cannot afford it anymore. One day, a security guard tries to stop Yiming and his friend from running away from a school trip. When Yiming climbs over the fance, he falls and loses consciousness. Even though Yiming is able to climb over the fence, he is not able to escape his youth torments. Weiming realizes that he has become a burden for his family. The conflicted family returns to Weiming’s hometown for the tomb-sweeping ritual, but the original mountain tomb has been replaced by newly built hotels. In the end, Weiming has a fantastic experience.
Director: Ma Lanhua Chen Lianhua Shi Ruini Cai Caibei | | | 67min | Short Film Collection
The Honor Among Thieves
The Honor Among Thieves is based on a vernacular Chinese short story titled Song the Fourth Greatly Torments Tightwad Zhang written by Feng Menglong, a Chinese vernacular writer and poet of the late Ming Dynasty. The story is first published in Feng’s short story collection Yushi Mingyan (Stories to Enlighten the World) in 1620. It focuses on four thieves in the Song Dynasty who are up against a wealthy evil miser and a corrupted local government.
A Fly in the Restaurant
At a restaurant in China, waiters try to swat flies while a number of diners are having their food.
Desire Line
‘Desire Line’ was originally an architect’s term for paths made by people when walking across open grassland, what these lines represent are the shortest or most easily navigated routes between an origin and destination. The film uses this idea in the context of how artificial intelligence might work: the bot generates optimal solutions to user problems as a form of desire line calculation. The film aims to interpret the increasingly controversial role of Artificial Intelligence by visualizing a statement from a bot about its experience on Valentine’s Day in the near future.
Half Asleep
One room, two half bodies, an unspoken relationship.
Director: Quentin Qiao | China | White&Black | 60min | Documentary
Pebble tells the story of a young man who suffered from a uncurable rare disease. After living a hobo life in Beijing, he decided to go home.
Director: Li Jinghong | China | Color | 96min | Documentary
A disabled youth, who had only been to school for one day, has published a book and became a well-know author. It arose a lot of concern within society. Beyond the materialism, you will get to see his firm heart. The truth, however, is the identity of the author didn’t bring him a better life. In contrast, he still struggles for basic needs in life. Suffered from all these, he made up his mind for carrying on with his incomplete body; and believes that the forms of life are supposed to be diverse. Life changed him secularly, but his calmness before the death made him admirable. For though he may die, from now on to the last moment, he will keep fighting up against the unequal fate. Through the process of self-struggling, he reshaped his mind and recognized the meaning of being: after recognizing the truth of life, he chose to accept and embrace it.
Director: Wong Wai Nap Geng Zihan Deng Weiqi | | | 90min | Short Film Collection
That Morning
Set in Hong Kong, Eya is a shy teen who takes writing as a way to escape alienation, bullying, and loneliness. On the school fun day, Eya remains silent in the interview, but she is not the only one who finds life is too hard to bear. Everything is changed that morning.
A Ray of Sunshine
The waiter and the cook in the restaurant are a young couple. The cook first gets fired because of fighting. Then he accompanies his girlfriend, the waitress, to have her physical examination at hospital. Throughout the course of the day, they discover both crisis and strength in their relationship through these two sudden dramas.
What About Bready Then?
To save his favorite sheep ‘Bready’ from being sold by his father, the child, accompanying with his father, set out on a sheep-sale journey. By satisfying the buyer’s ‘special need’, the child managed to rescue ‘Bready’, only to find that the fate of ‘Bready’ had been incompatible with the whole flock.
Director: Radu Jude | Romania / Germany / Bulgaria / France / Czech Republic | Color | 140 min | Fiction
“I do not care if we go down in history as barbarians.” These words, spoken in the
Council of Ministers of the summer of 1941, started the ethnic cleansing on the Eastern Front. The film attempts to comment on thisstatement.
Director: Xu Lei | China | Color | 90min | Fiction
Chaoying, Shuhe and Zhanyi are three ordinary rural elders who have a good relationship and often drink together.Recently, Chaoying sold all his cattle which he had raised for a long time，and began to renovate his old house full of ambition. However, an accident at the construction site happened unexpectedly. Shuhe, who came to help Chaoying build the house, was hit by a car which ran away. According to the convention of the village, if the killer cannot be found, Chaoying will be responsible for the unaffordable medical expenses. And in this case, he would had no money for his house. In order to keep Chaoying’s house and to demand justice for their friend, two old rural men, Chaoying and Zhanyi, embarked on the journey of chasing the hit-and-run driver. They rode three-wheeled electric motors and ran on the vast North China Plain. It was doomed to be an absurd journey…
Director: Wang Kunlin | United States/China | Color | 91min | Fiction
Obscure is a coming-of-age story of a teenage boy, who sexually awakens after discovering the dark secret relationship between his father and sister. The story takes place in an alienated, self-contained universe. The boy spends his days working on the farm with livestock, in fear of his authoritarian father, and in the close, intimate company of his sister. The sister’s gender expression is repressed, and she suffers harsh, repetitive farm work as well as assaults from the father. The sibling love and companionship, which once served to counterbalance familial strangeness, is now disturbed after the boy develops a sexual desire for the sister.
Director: Wang Jing | China | Color | 123min | Fiction
Changfeng Town is located in an inconspicuous corner of China. The townspeople know each other well and are content with life. Airplanes pass by the town from time to time, reminding people of an unknown outside world. Many things in town exist in solitude – the cinema, the dentist, the Auto repair shop, the news office, and the elementary school. The townspeople are unique and full of eccentricities. They each has a story of their own: The domestic problem of the aimless Redhead, the secret between the dentist and his son, the unrequited love of cinema ticket-seller Cai-Xia, the loneliness of the crippled Xi-Shan and the humdrum life of the Mayor. A few mischievous boys wander in and out of these little stories, eventually with the coming-of-age and departure of one of these boys. The film tells in five intertwining chapters, always filled with joy and sadness but never without hope.
Director: Xu Lei | China | Color | 90min | Fiction
Chaoying, Shuhe and Zhanyi are three ordinary rural elders who have a good relationship and often drink together.Recently, Chaoying sold all his cattle which he had raised for a long time，and began to renovate his old house full of ambition. However, an accident at the construction site happened unexpectedly. Shuhe, who came to help Chaoying build the house, was hit by a car which ran away. According to the convention of the village, if the killer cannot be found, Chaoying will be responsible for the unaffordable medical expenses. And in this case, he would had no money for his house. In order to keep Chaoying’s house and to demand justice for their friend, two old rural men, Chaoying and Zhanyi, embarked on the journey of chasing the hit-and-run driver. They rode three-wheeled electric motors and ran on the vast North China Plain. It was doomed to be an absurd journey…
Director: Emil Langballe | Denmark | Color | 60 min | Documentary
Q´s Barbershop is located in the heart of Vollsmose – the largest social housing project in Denmark – and is a popular hangout spot for the young Somalis of the area. The owner of the salon, Qasim, is from Somalia himself, and he makes sure that young people in Vollsmose have got style. Also, you can get advices about life such as love, relationship or education. Necessarily, Qasim is happy to help for the Danish test while trimming and styling. No matter if you are an immigrant, a criminal, or a straight-A student, you all need a cool haircut. And the majority of Q´s customers do in fact leave the barbershop with renewed energy for whatever challenges the rest of the day – or life in general – might bring.
Director: Beniamino Barrese | Italy | Color | 94min | Documentary
Benedetta wants to disappear. An iconic fashion model in the 1960s, she became a muse to Warhol, Dali, Penn and Avedon. As a radical feminist in the 1970s, she fought for the rights and emancipation of women. But at the age of 75, she becomes fed up with all the roles that life has imposed upon her and decides to leave everything and everybody behind, to disappear to a place as far as possible from the world she knows.
Hiding behind the camera, her son Beniamino witnesses her journey. Having filmed her since he was a child in spite of all her resistance, he now wants to make a film about her, to keep her close for as long as possible – or, at least, as long as his camera keeps running.
Director: Qu Youjia Layla Jian Luo Xie Yun | | | 85min | Short Film Collection
Together Apart
After a lengthy Chinese funeral, Xiaoqin found her deceased father was back home again. The unexpectable reunion dooms a re-separation ending.
What Do You Know about the Water and the Moon
During an abortion, instead of aborting the fetus, a girl gives birth to a live jellyfish.
Pier Las Vegas
Gao Xing, a hearing-disabled and vocally impaired person from a small town in China, an ordinary housekeeper at a Las Vegas casino hotel, always rummage through the guests’ luggage secretly while cleaning the room to search for clues about his sister who was adopted by an American family long ago. Hotel work is only a part of Gao’s life. He shuttles in the crowds at the most prosperous city with a teddy-bear suite after work and distributes the tracing notices to passers. At one afternoon, when Gao was cleaning a room, he encountered a girl who was going to the music festival near the hotel. After she left, in her suitcase, Gao found a little bear toy which was the one hand-stitched by her mother when he was young. Gao was smiling and tearing, but he couldn’t hear the continuous gunshots outside the window. The massive shooting at the Las Vegas Music Festival that shocked the world later on, is happening…
Director: Burak Çevik | Turkey/Canada/France | Color | 73min | Fiction
Belonging makes a topographic observation by following the locations of a criminal case 15 years after the incident, accompanied by statements given by the suspects.
Then, it shows the night that the murderer couple met.
Director: Ena Sendijarevic | The Netherlands/Bosnia | Color | 91min | Fiction
On the edge of adulthood, Alma leaves her mother’s home in the Netherlands and travels to her native Bosnia to visit the father she’s never met. But from the start nothing goes as planned. Her cousin Emir gives her a frosty reception and mocks her easy life in the West. At the same time, undeniable sexual chemistry leads Alma into a passionate relationship with Emir’s best friend, the troublemaker Denis. As the obstacles mount, Alma stays fearlessly determined to follow her plan and find her father. She just has to figure herself out first.
Director: Yang Lina | China | Color | 124min | Fiction
Guo Jianbo is a journalist specializing in social news. She lives together with her mother and daughter. Many reports she covered brought her a lot of pain and agony.
Her mother helps out in the local community after retirement. She is warm and friendly to all the residents and people in that community and regularly organizes singing competitions.
But there seems to be an invisible glass wall between Guo and her mother. Guo’s daughter grows up and develops her own personality in the cracks of that invisible screen. The family ties that bind the three together and the nature of the times in which they each grew up have seeped into their veins like a deadly poison.
Three generations. Three different contexts. Each of them has their own way of escaping from the reality around them, but they inevitably clash from time to time. After a particularly serious confrontation, the grandmother is admitted to hospital and peace returns to their lives.
Among all the anxiety and hurt brought about by Guo’s father, their experiences of the past and worries for the future, we also get a glimpse of reconciliation and a glimmer of hope.
Director: Lei Lei | United States | Color | 68min | Fiction
‘Have you ever dreamed of something when you were young?’ A woman recalls her youthful memories of her 1970’s. The development course and the process of modernization are revived and unfolds in front of us. One day, the first breathless animal appears to her, a white horse…
Director: Wang Lina | China | Color | 88min | Fiction
Deep in northwestern China, surrounded by cotton fields and desert, lies the Uyghur village that Isa calls home. When he is not at school or working on his parents’ farmyard, he spends carefree days with his friends – until the outside world starts forcing him to say one goodbye after another. With Isa’s mother’s illness placing an increasing burden on the family, his father considers putting her in a care home, far away from the village. Isa’s best friend Kalbinur is getting bad grades and is about to be sent to a faraway Chinese school. And then the little lamb, which the two children had been looking after with devotion ever since it was born, disappears. Captured in naturalistic imagery, winter closes in on Isa’s world.
Director: Wang Qi | China/Japan | Color | 116min | Fiction
A story based on a young Chinese family living in Japan. Set in the vibrant 1990s, the family struggles to adapt to the capitalistic Japanese society. One day, their grandfather comes to visit them from Shanghai, and they try to act like a happy family to welcome the grandfather.
Director: Tony Tan | China | Color | 74min | Documentary
The couple Is Not the Same Birds is a documentary based on a family from the ordinary middle class. It was shot in Dandong, Liaoning Province, the largest border city in China. The film looks into a couple who divorced 15 years ago, and the director interviewed them about their daily lives. The director makes a comparison between the past and the current life with the combination of home videos and showed the present situation of the second marriage – the director’s parents’ marriage as well as their opinions on marriage and love.
Director: Ma Lanhua Chen Lianhua Shi Ruini Cai Caibei | | | 67min | Short Film Collection
The Honor Among Thieves
The Honor Among Thieves is based on a vernacular Chinese short story titled Song the Fourth Greatly Torments Tightwad Zhang written by Feng Menglong, a Chinese vernacular writer and poet of the late Ming Dynasty. The story is first published in Feng’s short story collection Yushi Mingyan (Stories to Enlighten the World) in 1620. It focuses on four thieves in the Song Dynasty who are up against a wealthy evil miser and a corrupted local government.
A Fly in the Restaurant
At a restaurant in China, waiters try to swat flies while a number of diners are having their food.
Desire Line
‘Desire Line’ was originally an architect’s term for paths made by people when walking across open grassland, what these lines represent are the shortest or most easily navigated routes between an origin and destination. The film uses this idea in the context of how artificial intelligence might work: the bot generates optimal solutions to user problems as a form of desire line calculation. The film aims to interpret the increasingly controversial role of Artificial Intelligence by visualizing a statement from a bot about its experience on Valentine’s Day in the near future.
Half Asleep
One room, two half bodies, an unspoken relationship.
Director: Zhou Mingying | China | Color | 98min | Documentary
In a utopian world called ‘The Land of Peach Blossoms’, grandiose collectivism is spread out from the central authority, which asked the youth to sacrifice the self-consciousness, to establish an ideal community. In the utopian experiment of happiness, tiredness and strictness, the faith among people gradually reversed by reality, some even become resistant. The wonderland faces a severe challenge.
Director: Quentin Qiao | China | White&Black | 60min | Documentary
Pebble tells the story of a young man who suffered from a uncurable rare disease. After living a hobo life in Beijing, he decided to go home.
Director: Teona Strugar Mitevska | Republic of Macedonia/Belgium/France/Croatia/Slovenia | Color | 100min | Fiction
In Stip, a small town in Macedonia, every January the local priest throws a wooden cross into the river and hundreds of men dive after it. Good fortune and prosperity are guaranteed to the man who retrieves it. This time, Petrunya dives into the water on a whim and manages to grab the cross before the others. Her competitors are furious – how dare a woman take part in their ritual? All hell breaks loose, but Petrunya holds her ground. She won her cross and will not give it up.
Director: Tony Tan | China | Color | 74min | Documentary
The couple Is Not the Same Birds is a documentary based on a family from the ordinary middle class. It was shot in Dandong, Liaoning Province, the largest border city in China. The film looks into a couple who divorced 15 years ago, and the director interviewed them about their daily lives. The director makes a comparison between the past and the current life with the combination of home videos and showed the present situation of the second marriage – the director’s parents’ marriage as well as their opinions on marriage and love.
Director: Ivan Marković Wu Linfeng | Germany/China/Serbia | Color | 60min | Fiction
The vast, growing city remains unexplored. Li works at night and sleeps during the daytime. His roommate lives in an adverse time schedule. In underground housing, two men sleep on the same bed at a different time. This tiny space becomes a temporal shelter to both of them. But they are leaving soon.
Director: Zhang Chong Zhang Bo | China | Color | 91min |
Liu Lu is a sika deer breeder who buried herself in her painful past. After learning that there is another ‘her’ in the parallel world, she wants to know if ‘she’ has a better life. So that, she reveals the accident happened twenty years ago, which puzzled herself between reality and illusory.
Director: Yang Lina | China | Color | 124min | Fiction
Guo Jianbo is a journalist specializing in social news. She lives together with her mother and daughter. Many reports she covered brought her a lot of pain and agony.
Her mother helps out in the local community after retirement. She is warm and friendly to all the residents and people in that community and regularly organizes singing competitions.
But there seems to be an invisible glass wall between Guo and her mother. Guo’s daughter grows up and develops her own personality in the cracks of that invisible screen. The family ties that bind the three together and the nature of the times in which they each grew up have seeped into their veins like a deadly poison.
Three generations. Three different contexts. Each of them has their own way of escaping from the reality around them, but they inevitably clash from time to time. After a particularly serious confrontation, the grandmother is admitted to hospital and peace returns to their lives.
Among all the anxiety and hurt brought about by Guo’s father, their experiences of the past and worries for the future, we also get a glimpse of reconciliation and a glimmer of hope.
Director: Chai Xiaoyu | China | Color | 106min | Fiction
Zhang xiaoyu called director Chai Xiaoyu and said he was not confident of playing the role in the film. Chai’s classmate Li Haifeng comes to Beijing with his girlfriend Yanyan from Guangzhou. Yanyan comes to Beijing to study violin and longs to enter a professional orchestra. Although Haifeng comes to Beijing for accompanying Yanyan, he is also secretly dating his ex-girlfriend since he is in Beijing. Haifeng began to worry that Yanyan may be cheating on him. There was always a sense of distrust between them. One night, Zhang and Yanyan have sex behind Haifeng’s back, and on the same night Haifeng and his ex-girlfriend hold hands on a taxi. Haifeng is surprised when he sees Yanyan and her professor walking out of school, but he doesn’t say a word. He just runs past them. Zhang and Chai discuss how to handle the relationship and love in the play. Zhang was gradually persuaded by Chai and became more and more interested in the character in the script.
Director: Wei Zi Pan Qianyu Zeng Zhi Li Wenyu Shen Jie | | | 58min | Short Film Collection
Like Gold, Like Grey
Like Gold, Like Grey is a 20-minute observational film, focuses on the manufacture of saxophones in a small village in the northern part of China. The village is named ‘Saxophone Capital’, where produces over 10,000 saxophones per month at more than 70 factories. Although more than 3,500 people are working for the production of saxophones, however, less than 10 people know how to play this instrument. The head of these factories hired saxophone teacher from town, to teach them how to play the saxophone for free, which already lasts ten years. The most popular saxophone song in here is Going Home (Kenny G, 1989). This song is also known as one of the famous western songs in China for over 30 years.
The Abyss
In this world, no one has his/her own name except a code. Human beings are divided into several levels. Different levels were assigned to different types of work. The ‘Fountain’ is both the source of energy and the landmark landscape in this city. There are many tall towers like diving platforms near the fountain. People can get closed to the ‘fountain’ here.
Hello
A cleaner who worked alone in the underground parking lot every day, faced the heavy rain and leaking rooms, and finally he jumped into the trunk of a zombie car.
A Bus
A bus drives from city A to city B.
Splash
The splash of water is like a bomb, about to break the tranquility of the pool.
Director: Wong Wai Nap Geng Zihan Deng Weiqi | | | 90min | Short Film Collection
That Morning
Set in Hong Kong, Eya is a shy teen who takes writing as a way to escape alienation, bullying, and loneliness. On the school fun day, Eya remains silent in the interview, but she is not the only one who finds life is too hard to bear. Everything is changed that morning.
A Ray of Sunshine
The waiter and the cook in the restaurant are a young couple. The cook first gets fired because of fighting. Then he accompanies his girlfriend, the waitress, to have her physical examination at hospital. Throughout the course of the day, they discover both crisis and strength in their relationship through these two sudden dramas.
What About Bready Then?
To save his favorite sheep ‘Bready’ from being sold by his father, the child, accompanying with his father, set out on a sheep-sale journey. By satisfying the buyer’s ‘special need’, the child managed to rescue ‘Bready’, only to find that the fate of ‘Bready’ had been incompatible with the whole flock.
Director: Li Jinghong | China | Color | 96min | Documentary
A disabled youth, who had only been to school for one day, has published a book and became a well-know author. It arose a lot of concern within society. Beyond the materialism, you will get to see his firm heart. The truth, however, is the identity of the author didn’t bring him a better life. In contrast, he still struggles for basic needs in life. Suffered from all these, he made up his mind for carrying on with his incomplete body; and believes that the forms of life are supposed to be diverse. Life changed him secularly, but his calmness before the death made him admirable. For though he may die, from now on to the last moment, he will keep fighting up against the unequal fate. Through the process of self-struggling, he reshaped his mind and recognized the meaning of being: after recognizing the truth of life, he chose to accept and embrace it.
Director: Ena Sendijarevic | The Netherlands/Bosnia | Color | 91min | Fiction
On the edge of adulthood, Alma leaves her mother’s home in the Netherlands and travels to her native Bosnia to visit the father she’s never met. But from the start nothing goes as planned. Her cousin Emir gives her a frosty reception and mocks her easy life in the West. At the same time, undeniable sexual chemistry leads Alma into a passionate relationship with Emir’s best friend, the troublemaker Denis. As the obstacles mount, Alma stays fearlessly determined to follow her plan and find her father. She just has to figure herself out first.
Director: Bettina Perut Iván Osnovikoff | Chile/Germany | Color | 78 min | Documentary
Chola and Football are a couple of street dogs that live in the Los Reyes skatepark. A microcosm is organized around them, composed of things, animals and young adolescents in conflict with an adult world that they reject but are required to enter.
Director: Makoto Nagahisa | Japan | Color | 121min | Drama/Music
One sunny day, four young teens Hikari, Ikuko, Ishi and Takemura meet by chance at a crematorium, all having lost their parents at the same time. Hikari’s were because of a car crash on holiday. Ikuko’s were murdered by a deranged stalker. Ishi’s were due to a gas explosion. Takemura’s killed themselves to escape from heavy debt. But none of them could shed a tear. They were like zombies, devoid of all emotion. Alone in the world with no future, no dreams or even the energy to move forward, they dress themselves with rags from a garbage dump, turning their favorite items into musical instruments, and decide to form band called Little Zombies, trying to retrieve their access to tears.
Director: Zhai Yixiang | China | Color | 110min | Fiction
Migrant worker Xu comes back home upon finding out about his 14-year-old daughter Ying’s sudden pregnancy. He seeks for justice in vain, when Ying’s school and local authorities promise an investigation but prevaricate over Ying’s accusation against her teacher. Jia, a journalist from Shenzhen, shows interest in the case as he scrutinizes the misty town. When he gets lost in trailing into the rebellious girl’s real life, he lingers around, waiting for the shocking truth to be revealed only after childbirth… At the center of the whirlpool, Ying endures the spotlight shone on her body with indifference. Shortly after labor, the young mother leaves town to receive social assistance in an effort to heal her past. Will she find peace in her future? Will her inner voice be heard one day?
Director: Gu Xiaogang | China | Color | 150min | Fiction
At the 70th birthday celebration, the aged mother of the Yu family suffers from a stroke, which precipitates her decline into dementia. Who will take care of her? The four brothers face crucial changes in their relationships to one another, as they deal with their own family problems. The eldest brother tries to control her rebellious daughter who fights for her freedom of marriage. The second brother, still living on a fishing boat, has to buy an apartment for his son who is getting married. The third brother lives with his son with Down syndrome and is constantly hounded by his creditors. The youngest son lives a lonely but irresponsible life. Their destinies, linked by love and challenged by questions and dilemmas, unfold over the course of four seasons, as in an ancient Chinese scroll painting.
Director: Huang Zi | China | Color | 110min | Fiction
Everything changes for a family of three when Weiming,he husband and father was diagnosed with terminal cancer.The family shrouded in sadness since after,although they all try to maintain peace. The mother, Muling, who supports the family all by herself, is not understood by her husband and son. When her sick husband and son become closer, she becomes more isolated. Although Muling has tried her best to keep Weiming from knowing his real condition, Weiming has come to realize that death is approaching. Yiming, their son, receives university admission from the U.S. He decides to keep it secret since he knows that his family cannot afford it anymore. One day, a security guard tries to stop Yiming and his friend from running away from a school trip. When Yiming climbs over the fance, he falls and loses consciousness. Even though Yiming is able to climb over the fence, he is not able to escape his youth torments. Weiming realizes that he has become a burden for his family. The conflicted family returns to Weiming’s hometown for the tomb-sweeping ritual, but the original mountain tomb has been replaced by newly built hotels. In the end, Weiming has a fantastic experience.
Director: Jiang Feng | China | Color & Black and White | 104min | Documentary
In Hainan, there is a Guanyin Temple. The Guanyin in the temple decided to make a movie based on her personal experience. Two friends and I planned to make a documentary Guanyin Also Make Movies built from this event. Gradually, the act of us shooting the documentary, starting to echo with the act of Guanyin making the movie. To every single person, the image has its own unique significance. Therefore, we also turned the camera to ourselves, deriving Three Men Who Made a Movie Named Guanyin Also Make Movies Also Made a Movie from Guanyin Also Make Movies.
Director: Radu Jude | Romania / Germany / Bulgaria / France / Czech Republic | Color | 140 min | Fiction
“I do not care if we go down in history as barbarians.” These words, spoken in the
Council of Ministers of the summer of 1941, started the ethnic cleansing on the Eastern Front. The film attempts to comment on thisstatement.
Director: Sun Yang S. Leo Chiang | China | Color | 81min | Documentary
When influential Chinese artist Ma Liang (a.k.a. Maleonn) realizes that his father Ma Ke, an accomplished Peking Opera director, is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, he invites his father to collaborate on his most ambitious project to date – a haunting, magical, autobiographical stage performance featuring life-size mechanical puppets called ‘Papa’s Time Machine’. Through the creation of this play, the two men confront their mortality before time runs out and memories are lost forever.
Director: Denis Côté | Canada | Color | 97min | Fiction
In Irénée-les-Neiges, a small, isolated town with a population of 215, Simon Dubé dies in a car accident. The stunned townspeople are reluctant to discuss the circumstances of the tragedy. From that point on, for the Dubé family as well as for Mayor Smallwood and a handful of others, time seems to lose all meaning, and the days stretch on without end. Something descends slowly upon the area. In this period of mourning and in this fog, strangers start to appear. Who are they? What is happening?
Director: Beniamino Barrese | Italy | Color | 94min | Documentary
Benedetta wants to disappear. An iconic fashion model in the 1960s, she became a muse to Warhol, Dali, Penn and Avedon. As a radical feminist in the 1970s, she fought for the rights and emancipation of women. But at the age of 75, she becomes fed up with all the roles that life has imposed upon her and decides to leave everything and everybody behind, to disappear to a place as far as possible from the world she knows.
Hiding behind the camera, her son Beniamino witnesses her journey. Having filmed her since he was a child in spite of all her resistance, he now wants to make a film about her, to keep her close for as long as possible – or, at least, as long as his camera keeps running.
Director: Nora Fingscheidt | Germany | Color | 118min | Fiction
She is small, but dangerous. Wherever Benni ends up, she is immediately expelled. The wild 9-year-old girl has already become what child protection services call a “system crasher”. And she is certainly not looking to change her ways. Because Benni has one single goal: to be back at home with her mommy! But Bianca is scared of her own daughter. Mrs. Bafané from child protection services is trying her best to find a permanent placement for Benni. She hires the anger management trainer Micha as Benni’s school escort and suddenly there is a seed of hope. Will Micha be able to succeed where all others despaired?
While being acutely authentic, first-time director Nora Fingscheidt transcends a psychological study and crafts vibrant, visceral and emotional cinema, which evokes unforgettable performances.
Director: Zhai Yixiang | China | Color | 110min | Fiction
Migrant worker Xu comes back home upon finding out about his 14-year-old daughter Ying’s sudden pregnancy. He seeks for justice in vain, when Ying’s school and local authorities promise an investigation but prevaricate over Ying’s accusation against her teacher. Jia, a journalist from Shenzhen, shows interest in the case as he scrutinizes the misty town. When he gets lost in trailing into the rebellious girl’s real life, he lingers around, waiting for the shocking truth to be revealed only after childbirth… At the center of the whirlpool, Ying endures the spotlight shone on her body with indifference. Shortly after labor, the young mother leaves town to receive social assistance in an effort to heal her past. Will she find peace in her future? Will her inner voice be heard one day?
Director: Bong Joon Ho | South Korea | Color | 132min | Fiction
Ki-taek’s family of four is close, but fully unemployed, with a bleak future ahead of them. The son Ki-woo is recommended by his friend, a student at a prestigious university, for a well-paid tutoring job, spawning hopes of a regular income. Carrying the expectations of all his family, Ki-woo heads to the Park family home for an interview. Arriving at the house of Mr. Park, the owner of a global IT firm, Ki-woo meets Yeon-kyo, the beautiful young lady of the house. But following this first meeting between the two families, an unstoppable string of mishaps lies in wait.