Shanghai Rumba

Shanghai Women

After Women’s Story, Peng returns to the most straightforward representation of women’s issues in Shanghai Women, a film about three rural women. As the first work in Peng’s Shanghai Trilogy, Shanghai Women describes the problem that women encounter trying to secure urban (residential) space through the story of women from three generations.

Women's Story

Women’s Story was the first work to garner international acclaim for Peng Xiaolian. It is about three women living in China’s northern countryside and straightforwardly raises the issue of gender inequality hidden in a communist society.

Red Persimmons

The ostensible subject of this film is the growing, drying, peeling and packaging of persimmons in the tiny Japanese village of Kaminoyama. The inhabitants explain that it is the perfect combination of earth, wind and rain that makes their village’s persimmons superior to those grown anywhere else, including the village just a few miles away. The film’s larger subject, however, is the disappearance of Japan’s traditional culture, the end of a centuries-old way of life.

Keke's Magic Umbrella

2000 film

Once Upon a Time in Shanghai

The protagonists are mainly Huirong, Zhaobai, and Jikan, who have studied business management in the USA and have returned to their hometown, Shanghai. Huirong and Zhaobai are engaged, and although three of them are close friends, problems arise when they find out that their opinions clash on the matter of what the objective for building a new China should be and what direction it should take.

Shanghai Story

The film follows the rise and fall of a family in Shanghai. Once wealthy and capitalist, the family unraveled during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s. Their home, once a French concession mansion, was converted into a multi-family dwelling.

Please Remember Me

A young actress, successful in her small hometown, seeks fame and fortune in the big city. She goes to live with a friend, who is currently making a film about Zhao Dan. They live in a building about to be destroyed. Can their differing visions of art and love come to pass, or will heartbreak put an end to their relationship, as it does to the old Shanghai?

Kids in Shanghai

A Piece of Heaven: Preliminary Documents

Documentary on Professor Situ Zhaodun of the Beijing Film Academy

The Red Race

The Red Race recounts the stories of several Chinese children-gymnasts who (are forced to) dream of becoming famous athletes. The 6-year-olds at the Lu Wan District Youth Athletic School in Shanghai, trained relentlessly in the hopes they will one day be gold medalists, provide the subjects for a sometimes harsh, yet intimate portrait.

Storm Under the Sun

Storm Under the Sun is a documentary about one of the "political storms" by Mao Zedong that fell upon the intellectuals of China in the 50's. Centered around the Hu Feng Case, the documentary traces the synergy that generated such an event, Mao's personal involvement in every step, and various victims' reaction to and realizations following the humiliation and accusations.

Me and My Classmates

Children’s film from Peng Xiaolian.

The Dog Homicide

A ballet director is killed by his own dog, the police believes that it is a murder.

Blood and Chocolate

A young teenage werewolf is torn between honoring her family's secret and her love for a man.

A Love Song for Bobby Long

A headstrong young woman returns to New Orleans after the death of her estranged mother.

Stick It

Haley is a naturally gifted athlete but, with her social behavior, the teen seems intent on squandering her abilities. After a final brush with the law, a judge sentences her to an elite gymnastics academy run by a legendary, hard-nosed coach. Once there, Haley's rebellious attitude wins her both friends and enemies.

The Darkest Minds

After a disease kills 98% of America's children, the surviving 2% develop superpowers and are placed in internment camps. A 16-year-old girl escapes her camp and joins a group of other teens on the run from the government.

You Are So Beautiful

Aymé Pigrenet, a recently widowed farmer, is eager to find a new wife to help him run his farm. Desperate, he seeks the aid of a local matchmaker who suggest that he go to Romania to find a new wife. There he meets Elena.

Yentl

In a time when girls were forbidden to study religious scriptures, a Jewish girl masquerades as a boy to enter religious training and unexpectedly finds love along the way.

Ravenous

After arriving at his new, remote Army outpost, Capt. John Boyd and his regiment aid a wounded frontiersman who recounts a horrifying tale of a wagon train murdered by its supposed guide – a vicious U.S. Army colonel gone rogue. Fearing the worst, the regiment heads out into the wilderness to verify the gruesome claims.

Frozen River

After her husband deserts her, working-class mother Ray Eddy is in great need of money to find a home. Lured by the possibility of easy cash, she joins Lila, a widowed Mohawk who earns a living by smuggling immigrants from Canada to the U.S. across the St. Lawrence.

Water Lilies

Set during a sultry summer in a French suburb, Marie is desperate to join the local pool's synchronized swimming team, but is her interest solely for the sake of sport or for a chance to get close to Floriane, the bad girl of the team? Sciamma, and the two leads, capture the uncertainty of teenage sexuality with a sympathetic eye in this delicate drama of the angst of coming-of-age.

I Am Sam

Sam, a neurodivergent man, has a daughter with a homeless woman who abandons them when they leave the hospital, leaving Sam to raise Lucy on his own. But as Lucy grows up, Sam's limitations as a parent start to become a problem and the authorities take her away. Sam convinces high-priced lawyer Rita to take his case pro bono and in turn teaches her the value of love and family.

Thirteen

When 13-year-old Tracy befriends Evie, the most popular girl in school, her life is turned upside down as Evie introduces her to a world of sex, drugs, and money. But it isn’t long before Tracy’s new lifestyle begins to take a heavy toll on her and her family.

A League of Their Own

As America's stock of athletic young men is depleted during World War II, a professional all-female baseball league springs up in the Midwest, funded by publicity-hungry candy maker Walter Harvey. Competitive sisters Dottie Hinson and Kit Keller spar with each other, scout Ernie Capadino and grumpy has-been coach Jimmy Dugan on their way to fame.