Tao Zhao

This decades-spanning epic follows a woman's unwavering love for her former partner, set against the backdrop of China's immense social and economic changes from 2001 to the present. Starting in Datong, the film tracks her persistent search for him after he leaves, illustrating her journey across the country and the profound emotional cost of time, separation, and modernization.

A fierce woman falls in love with a local mobster in a declining mining town. During a violent rivalry, she fires a gun to protect him, resulting in a five-year prison sentence. Upon her release, she embarks on a journey across a transformed China to track down the man she sacrificed her freedom for, exploring themes of loyalty, betrayal, and the relentless passage of time.

A short film omnibus featuring the work of five directors representing five countries involved in the 2017 BRICS summit, an annual international relations conference held between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. (imdb)

In late 1990s Fenyang, Shen Tao is caught between two suitors: Zhang, an ambitious businessman, and Liangzi, a coal miner. Her eventual choice sets off a decades-long ripple effect. Spanning three distinct time periods—1999, 2014, and 2025—the narrative explores the evolving landscape of China, the loss of cultural identity, and the enduring complexity of family ties across generations.

Jia Zhangke's short film for Greenpeace East Asia depicts the effects of air pollution in northeast China, a region frequently blanketed in dangerous levels of air pollution. 'Smog Journeys' traces two families from two different backgrounds; one a mining family in Hebei province, and the other a trendy middle class family in Beijing. Both face a similar fate. Air pollution is one of China's most pressing environmental and health issues. (imdb)

This powerful anthology film weaves together four separate but thematically linked stories based on real-life events in modern China, exploring the anger and violence that stem from economic disparity and social injustice. From a miner fighting corruption to a factory worker's quiet desperation, the tales depict marginalized individuals driven to extreme acts by a rapidly changing, unforgiving society.

A study of the friendship between a Chinese woman and a fisherman who came to Italy from Yugoslavia many years ago, who live in a small city-island in the Veneto lagoon. (imdb)

A state-owned munitions factory in Chengdu is demolished to make way for a luxury apartment complex. Through a blend of real interviews and fictionalized monologues, the film chronicles the lives of three generations of workers. It captures the transition from a socialist planned economy to a market-driven society, serving as an elegiac tribute to the collective memory of a vanishing era.

Under Jia Zhangke's precisely controlled camera, a ten-year reunion of four classmates in Suzhou, China, modulates imperceptibly from gentle nostalgia--they were poets in university, and now talk investments--to something deeper and fundamentally disturbing. Even Suzhou's Song dynasty canals weep rain for them. (viff.org)

A short film, ten years, two women, and one word

In the town of Fengjie, which is gradually being submerged by the construction of the Three Gorges Dam, two strangers arrive seeking their missing spouses. As they navigate the disappearing landscape, the film captures the intersection of personal heartbreak and massive industrial change. It is a contemplative look at the human cost of progress and the fragility of connections in a shifting world.

Set in a Beijing theme park featuring scaled-down replicas of global landmarks, the story follows the lives and romantic entanglements of its young staff. Caught between modern aspirations and their rural origins, the characters navigate feelings of isolation and longing. The film serves as a poignant social commentary on globalization and the artificial nature of contemporary urban life.

In the industrial city of Datong, two disaffected nineteen-year-old friends drift through a landscape of unemployment and aimlessness. They spend their days on motorbikes, obsessed with Western pop culture and short-term thrills to escape their bleak reality. The narrative explores the disillusionment of a generation facing the uncertainties of a rapidly changing, globalized China.

A group of Mainland Chinese villagers struggling with poverty see a potential solution in an organized, illegal journey to a prosperous Western country. They pay handsomely and subject themselves to harsh conditions, crammed into a large truck container for weeks. The film provides a visceral and sobering look at the desperation driving economic migration and the extreme human cost of this clandestine international trade. It is a stark, realistic portrayal of survival and the pursuit of a better life.