Liang Jingdong
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. The collection—taking the concept of time as a unifying theme—depicts the economic, political, and social alienations and contradictions that create, compound, and structure issues as wide-ranging as poverty, class stratification, and homeless; familial distress; spousal abuse; and natural disaster.
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. Greenpeace calls for a shift from coal to clean renewable energy, as well as short term measures that better safeguard people's health.
The life of Tao, and those close to her, is explored in three different time periods: 1999, 2014, and 2025.
Throughout ten years of a key era in Chinese and Hong Kong history, a girl becomes fixated on a fellow commuter who she observes regularly. While the two never speak to one another, the girl captures her appearance and life changes during the years through various means such as photos and drawings.
A town in Fengjie county is gradually being demolished and flooded to make way for the Three Gorges Dam. A man and woman visit the town to locate their estranged spouses, and become witness to the societal changes.
Three disaffected youths live in Datong in 2001, part of the new "Birth Control" generation. Fed on a steady diet of popular culture, both Western and Chinese, the characters of Unknown Pleasures represent a new breed in the People's Republic of China, one detached from reality through the screen of media and the internet.
The movie is set in the remote chinese province of Fenyang, and spans the turbulent 1980s by following four performers in the state-run Peasant Culture Group. We see the group evolve from workers that are restricted to approved revolutionary classics that praise Chairman Mao, through performance of western classics, after china adopts an 'open door' policy, and the effects on their lives.
Little pocket thief Wu never got away from the streets like his friends did. He realises that he is alone, as his old buddy doesn't invite him for his wedding. When he falls in love with a hooker he is forced to think about his future. Can he break with his criminal past?
