100 Films to Watch to Help You Understand China - Indie and Arthouse
https://radii.co/article/china-films-indie-arthouse
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10 titles
- DirectorJiayin LiuStarsHuifen JiaJiayin LiuZaiping LiuDaily life in an impossibly cramped Beijing apartment takes on epic proportions in this, intimate portrait, with unprecedented access, of a working-class Chinese family.
- DirectorLei PengStarsChun SueTorki ZhangThe film follows the dating adventures of two young women. One is trying to find the right women and the other is trying to find the right man, both with little success. Then one evening at a karaoke bar the two meet.
- DirectorJie HaoStarsYushan CaoLin ChenXiulan ChenIn Gu Jia Gou Village, 150 km from Beijing, men outnumber women. Some buy wives from faraway Sichuan province. Other remain bachelors; they gossip and complain together - yet find ways to have a sex life. Lao Yang is still in love with the girl he was forbidden to marry as a young man; she is now the middle-aged wife of the village head, but they sneak out for secret trysts. Yet, Lao Yang wants more...
- DirectorLi NingWith groundbreaking honesty, performance artist Li Ning turns his life into art in this epic work of experimental documentary. For five grueling years, Li Ning documents his struggle to achieve success as an avant-garde artist while contending with the pressures of modern life in China. He is caught between two families: his wife, son and mother, whom he can barely support; and his enthusiastic but disorganized guerilla dance troupe. Li's chaotic life becomes inseparable from the act of taping it, as if his experiences can only make sense on screen. Tape shatters documentary conventions, utilizing a variety of approaches, including guerilla documentary, experimental street video, even CGI. Much like Jia Zhangke's Platform, Tape captures a decade's worth of artistic aspirations and failures, while breaking new ground in individual expression in China.
- DirectorMengqi ZhangThe young filmmaker returns to her village to interview the elderly on the Chinese famine of 1958-60. But the villagers' replies direct her back to the memory of her own family.
- DirectorBo WangStarsGabriela JaimeImages, representations and performances in China's contemporary spectacle.
- DirectorYi'nan DiaoStarsFan LiaoGwei Lun-MeiXuebing WangAn ex cop and his ex partner decide to follow up on investigation of a series of murders that ended their careers and shamed them, when identical murders begin again.
- DirectorChengjie CaiStarsWang QilinTian TianWen XinyuAfter losing her house and husband, a rural woman leads a stranded life with her 10-year-old brother-in-law in a modified "recreational vehicle". To find a warm place to survive the cold winter, she pretends to be a shaman who can rid villagers of evil spirits, and ironically, her juggled deceits often become real. However, she soon loses her power to people's greed and apathy, and in meagre attempts of salvation, her life story eventually ends in tragedy and disillusion.
- DirectorVivian QuStarsVicky ChenMeijun ZhouKe ShiIn a small seaside town, two schoolgirls are sexually assaulted by a middle-aged man in a motel. Mia, a teenager who was working on reception that night, is the only witness. For fear of losing her job, she chooses to keep silence.
- DirectorBo HuStarsYu ZhangYuchang PengUvin WangFour people in a Chinese city live through a complicated day as their lives intersect.