A story about coming to the end of your journey as an expat in China, told through the lens of the films that inspired us.
Ayi comes from a rural area of Eastern China and doesn’t have the residential permit that would allow her to work in Shanghai. Yet, she has been cooking in the streets for twenty years, in an old neighbourhood soon to be demolished. The film unveils the chaos of an ultra-modern city aiming to wipe out so-called substandard practices and to deport an unwanted population.
A short documentary that captures the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century, The Yellow Bank takes you on a contemplative boat ride across the Huangpu River in Shanghai, China. Filmmaker J.P. Sniadecki, who lived and worked in Shanghai nine years earlier, uses the eclipse as a catalyst to explore the way weather, light, and sound affect the urban architectural environment during this extremely rare phenomenon.
China is tumultuous in 1921 when the famed Japanese author of "Rashōmon", Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, visits Shanghai as a correspondent. Here he encounters revolutionaries, courtesans and much more…
October 1st, 1957. Dusk descends on Tiananmen Square, Peking. Fireworks crackle light across the night sky, above a city alive with National Day festivities and celebrations. Two intrepid New Zealand film-makers - Rudall and Ramai Te Miha Hayward - are there, documenting the life and times of communist China. The distinction of being the first English speaking foreigners to film unfettered in communist China was significant. The invitation to visit China was facilitated through the New Zealand China Friendship Society. They filmed in Canton, Shanghai, Peking (Beijing) and Wuhan. It was a small window of opportunity for Westerners to gaze on a country that was largely a mystery to the outside world since 1949. The unfortunate irony was that two of the documentaries; “Wonders of China”, and “Inside Red China”, were considered to be communist propaganda, and were not distributed outside of New Zealand.
For Chinese parents, finding out that their kid is gay usually presents a major tragedy, with the big majority utterly unable to accept the homosexuality of their son or daughter. However, during recent years a fresh rainbow wind has been blowing over the Chinese mainland: a pioneer generation of Chinese parents has been stepping up and speaking out on their love for their gay kids. This documentary features 6 mothers from all over China, who talk openly and freely about their experiences with their homosexual children. With their love, they are giving a whole new definition to Chinese-style family bonds.
Starring Shanghai action star Christian Kang Bachini and cult villain Wu Biao Long, Break a Dead Lock tells the a story about three orphans from different countries that were raised and trained by a Master Thief from Hong Kong. Each of them has a distinctive specialty: Fast hands, martial arts, and computer hacking. When they were about to retire on top of their game, they were offered a job they couldn't refuse, a chance to redeem a failed mission from 10 years ago. Soon, the trio falls into a downward spiral of danger and betrayal...
Journey with the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic and their conductor Sir Simon Rattle on a breakneck concert tour of six metropolises across Asia: Beijing, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Tokyo. Their artistic triumph onstage belies a dynamic and dramatic life backstage. The orchestra is a closed society that observes its own laws and traditions, and in the words of one of its musicians is, “an island, a democratic microcosm – almost without precedent in the music world - whose social structure and cohesion is not only founded on a common love for music but also informed by competition, compulsion and the pressure to perform to a high pitch of excellence... .” Never before has the Berlin Philharmonic allowed such intimate and exclusive access into its private world.
A glimpse into the lives of 4 Shanghai teenagers.
China’s President Xi Jinping is a force to be reckoned with. As leader of the Communist colossus, he commands the world’s attention, but who is China’s strongman and what is his agenda?
Part two of A comedy film set on Shanghai film studio. The background events frequently involve the shooting of other films being made at Mingxing Film Company at the time. This includes a sequence of the 17th episode of the silent wuxia film series Burning of the Red Lotus Temple, which is the only known footage from this historic series to exist.
Slightly bored, two young Chinese people circle around each other in modern Shanghai. She works in a trance club, he is a DJ. In the daytime they are at home together, but their relationship seems to have reached a stalemate. They hardly communicate and have arguments about nothing. A meeting with her ex in the street sets the young woman thinking. She started dressing differently and took a new hairstyle, but has she really changed?
A young pair from Stuttgart fly to Shanghai to hop aboard the textile business of his father while she prepares for the birth of their son. A story about the ever more common movement of Germans into the East for professional gain.
A new film compiled from the BFI National Archive's unparalleled holdings of early films of China, features films from 1900-48 filmed across China. The cinematic journey of Around China with a Movie Camera contains many films which may never have been seen in China, or at the very least not for over 70 years. These travelogues, newsreels and home movies were made by a diverse group of British and French filmmakers, some professionals, but mainly enthusiastic amateurs, including intrepid tourists, colonial-era expatriates and Christian missionaries.
Tenacious and optimistic, Mini (Angelica Lee) is an acrobat at a Shanghai circus troupe. Having lost both her parents at a young age, Mini has never had a real family, and her greatest dream is to find a love that she can rely on, a love that will make her fly. Kang (Liu Ye) works at a music store called Go With the Flow, which just about sums up his aimless lifestyle. Raised in an overly strict family, Kang grew up into a rebellious young man who likes to challenge social norms. These two very different young people meet by chance in the bustle of modern Shanghai, and spark a story of pure love and vertigo as their confused worlds collide.
A smaller scale Eiffel Tower and the Champs-Elysées can be found just outside Shanghai; a copy of St. Peter’s in Rome can be found in Yamoussoukro, in the Ivory Coast: a journey over three continents to see the architecture of imitation, the uncanny world of the fake.
Based on the novel of the same name, the film follows three cosmopolitan women, an actress, a PR specialist and a gallery manager, all wrestling with the ups and downs of their romantic lives.
In this war drama, a brave reporter tries to remain detached while covering the war in Shanghai. While there, he falls for an ex-streetwalker, but must compete with a mercenary pilot for her love. By the end, the correspondent loses his objectivity after he helps the pilot save the woman from the enemy. The rescue costs the pilot his life.
A lowly brothel maid captures the attention of Shanghai triad leaders, pulling her into a brutal war where she learns to rise above the odds in order to survive.