City of the Dead

An anthology film of seven short films made during the Training Camp of FIRST Film Festival 2021.

Crystal Lake is about a group of young girls who take over a skate park, forming an all-female force field on the half pipe. There on the reclaimed ramp, with no boys around, they are thriving and visible. This is an anthem for young feminists, which presents female friendship as a means to survive adolescence.

Yan is an illegal second child born during the One-Child policy. To avoid government punishment, Yan's parents hid their oldest daughter in the countryside and raised Yan as a girl. Now a young adult, Yan struggles with his gender identity and being treated as an outcast in a conservative society. His sole escape is drifting his father's old taxi through abandoned parking lots.

In the shadow of China’s growing erasure of marginalized lives and the tightening state surveillance, a sudden disappearance of an elderly woman in the frigid winter propels her caregiver, Lin, on a relentless search. As Lin’s quest deepens, the boundaries between her and the mystery blur, entwining her fate with the vanishing she seeks to resolve.