10.22 (Saturday) Buy Tickets

15:00-15:30 Reception

15:30-17:00 New Year’s Eve

18:00-20:00 Opening Ceremony and Screening of Knife in the Water

20:00-21:00 Refreshments

10.30 (Sunday)

10:30-20:00 Shanghai Youth

11.5 (Saturday)

19:30-21:00 Free and Easy

11.6 (Sunday)

14:00-15:30 This Worldly Life

18:00-20:00 Kaili Blues

Knife in the Water

Director: Wang Xuebo

Starring: Yang Shengcang

Genre: Drama

Country: China

Runtime: 93 min.

This story takes place in a remote village in the drought ridden region of Xihaigu in Ningxia. The matriarch of Chinese Muslim family has passed away, and her husband and son decide to slaughter their bull, which has been with them for almost 10 years, as a sacrifice to her. In the following days, they pamper the bull, but three days before the ceremony, the bull is spooked by the sword and begins to refuse water and food. Knife in the Water shares the deep reflections of life and death felt by a family familiar with hardship.

New Year’s Eve

Director: Ma Xiang

Starring: Chen Zhenghua, Ding Dang, Peng Yusi, Tan Qiao

Genre: Drama

Country: China

Runtime: 95 min.

On New Year’s Eve an old salesman is trying his luck at a university dorm and is invited into a room full of music students celebrating a birthday party. The students offer him drinks then gradually take interest in his products. Conversations turn sour and insults are thrown as things start getting out of control.

Shanghai Youth

Director: Gao Zipeng

Genre: Documentary

Country: China

Runtime: 515 min.

Hundreds of thousands of “Shanghai Youths” were sent to Xinjiang during the Youth Movement of the 1960s. The majority of them have now returned to the city marked by profound change reflected not only in its modern constructions but also in their relationship to its system of rights.

Free and Easy

Director: Geng Jun

Starring: Xu Gang, Zhang Zhiyong, Xue Baohe, Zhang Xun

Genre: Drama / Comedy / Crime

Country: China

Runtime: 90 min.

A crook visits a gloomy, snowbound town in northeast China bringing magic soap used to incapacitate the unaware so that he may rob them of money and property. A man is intent on re-uniting with his mother by meeting people through his religion. Two police officers set out to solve a case without any clues. A fake monk begins to work on the issue of solidarity through common pursuit. A forest ranger pursues a tree thief. In the midst of this, a murder takes place. Free and Easy is a farce in which crime is the new normal.

This Worldly Life

Director: Zhai Yixiang

Starring: Wang Pei, Huang Hui, Qiu Endian

Genre: Drama

Country: China

Runtime: 95 min.

A national scenic site and the temple contained within it are set to be reformed. The Buddhist abbot leaves the temple, and frauds move in to swindle believers that continue to visit the place. Caught amongst the shift, Shuang Quan revokes his monkhood to resume secular life. An old friend tries to assist him in re-acclimating by taking him to a brothel where Shuang Quan encounters his first true love. Police descend upon the scene, and the girl is arrested, later choosing to flee to the south for work as a salesgirl.

Having lost his beloved, Shuang Quan decides to take a chance on a schoolgirl he saves from being beaten....

Kaili Blues

Director: Bi Gan

Starring: Chen Yongzhong, Xie Lixun, Guo Yue, Yu Shixue

Genre: Drama / Mystery

Country: China

Runtime: 110 min.

In the mystical, subtropical province of Guizhou, there is a small county clinic surrounded by fog. At the Kaili clinic, there are two doctors who live quiet, lonely lives. One of the doctors, Chen Sheng, embarks on a journey by train to find his nephew, who had been abandoned by his brother. Once Chen arrives at Zhen Yuan, rather than approaching his nephew, he watches secretly from a distance and is surprised to find that his nephew has flourished in the absence of his father. Chen decides not to interfere in the boy’s life. Before he left Kaili, he had promised his colleague that he would stop by the home of her former lover to deliver a few items, but upon his arrival, he is told that the man has passed away. Regardless, Chen leaves the box of mementos...

Blackfin Production

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